See how I turned a cluttered firehouse storage bay into a functional maker space for our laser, 3D printer, tools, and lumber.

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• FlexiSpot E7 Plus standing desk
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The Problem

My shop is inside an old firehouse built in the ’70s. Most of the woodworking you see takes place in the main 1,066-square-foot bay, but there’s also a smaller bay that was added sometime in the ’90s. We always planned to use that space for the CNC, laser, and 3D printer. Instead, it slowly became the place where boxes, merchandise, lumber, and anything else without a home ended up. Maker Space Script

It was time for a proper maker space renovation.

The Plan

Function came first, but I also wanted this part of the shop to feel like a place where you actually want to spend time. The goal was to improve the layout, add storage and work surfaces, and give the room a little more style while I was at it. Maker Space Script

One of the first problems was electrical. The original brick wall only had two outlets, and neither was in great shape. Since conduit was already running across the wall, I expanded the setup with more outlets and added a row of sconces above the work area. And because apparently I can’t leave well enough alone, I also sanded, primed, and painted the conduit black so it would tie into the rest of the room.

Next came some old red Craftsman cabinets. They worked fine, but the bright red didn’t fit where the room was headed. I scuffed the surfaces, added primer, and painted them black. That let me reuse storage we already owned instead of buying an entirely new cabinet system.

The lumber also needed a new home. It had been stored at the back of the bay, which makes no sense when the garage door is at the other end of the room. I try to keep materials as close as possible to the door they come through, so the lumber and plywood moved forward into a much easier-to-access spot.

For the laser and 3D printer area, I added two FlexiSpot E7 Plus standing desks. The adjustable height gives us a much better workstation for the laser, including room for an external monitor, while the second desk gives the 3D printer a proper work surface instead of whatever random piece of furniture happens to be available.

A Quick Build

We also had several red Husky totes full of filament that needed somewhere to live, so I built a simple storage rack. The construction is about as basic as it gets: four legs, cross pieces, runners for the totes, and a back panel to keep the whole thing rigid. This wasn’t meant to be fine furniture. It just needed to fit the bins, hold up to shop use, and match the rest of the space.

Free Plan

Build the Tote Tower

Get the free PDF plan for the tote storage tower from this video. It holds four Husky 12 gallon totes and is built from 2x4s.

• Cut list and materials list
• Step by step assembly drawings
• Imperial and metric versions

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Finishing Touches

The last stage of the maker space renovation was mostly about making the work area useful. I added a shelf, black Wall Control pegboard, and an LED strip under the shelf. The pegboard keeps frequently used tools within reach, while the lighting and black hardware help tie the whole wall together.

There’s still plenty that can change as we use the room, but that’s really the point. A good shop doesn’t need to be finished forever. It needs to make the work easier.

This maker space renovation took a room that had become overflow storage and turned it into a real working part of the shop. The laser and 3D printer now have dedicated workstations, the lumber is easier to reach, the storage makes sense, and the room finally feels like it has a purpose.

Links

• Use our code, TWW for 10% off Wall Control products at WallControl.com
• Save 10% using my code TWW on Surfprep Sanders
• Titebond Speed Set

More Shop-Related Content You Will Enjoy

• From Old Firehouse to Woodworking Wonderland | Shop Tour 2024 — Best companion piece since it shows the rest of the current firehouse shop.
• I Organized My Woodshop Around One Simple Rule — Strong tie-in to storage, access, and shop organization.
• Small Tweaks, Big Results | Shop Layout — Very relevant to rethinking an existing space around how you actually work.
• 6 Tips for Better Shop Layout! — Direct connection to the material-flow and tool-placement ideas in this renovation.
• Dream Shop Build — Older, but a good evergreen resource on lighting, outlets, flexibility, and planning a shop from scratch.

My shop is in an old firehouse built in the 1970s. Most of what you see on this channel happens in the large thousand-square-foot bay. Plenty of room for a woodshop, but in the ’90s they added a smaller bay. And unfortunately, this space has never quite figured out what it wants to be. We plan to use it for CNC, laser, and even 3D printing. Instead, it was used for boxes, merchandise, and everything that didn’t fit in the other bay. Now, when we actually need to use the tools that are in there, it’s a huge pain in the butt and I’m getting kind of tired of it. Of course, function comes first, but I also want this place to look inspirational and awesome. That means making practical choices while adding in a strong dose of style and aesthetics. Here’s the plan. First, the wood supply needs to move. Right now, the lumber and plywood are all the way in the back of the bay, which breaks one of my main shop rules: keep your material as close as possible to the door it comes through. Next, I want a proper workstation for the laser. I run it from a laptop, but a sit/stand desk and external monitor would make this whole area much more functional. And if I could find a spot to tuck away the compressor, even better. The 3D printer also deserves a proper workbench, something sturdy with room for filament, and a few drawers that we can fill with stuff and subsequently forget about for the next five years. I also have some older red Craftsman rolling tool cabinets that I’d like to incorporate, but the red color is really harshing my mellow. And speaking of red, Nicole has a few of these Husky totes for her filament that I’d like to build a storage solution for. So let’s go. So I’m going to get started along this wall. And this isn’t faux. That’s the original brick exterior of the building from the first version of the building, which is pretty cool. But this wall has a big problem: not enough outlets. There’s already conduit running along the wall, but only two outlets, and the outlets that we have are in pretty rough shape. So first things first, I gotta get up in that loft and see what I have in the way of electrical supplies, because I know I’ve got some, and I don’t want to have to buy extra stuff if I’ve already got it. So let’s do a little Marc’s-eye view as I head to the danger zone. Oreo’s poop box. Lovely. This space is pretty embarrassing, but it’s another symptom of the greater organizational problem in this bay. And because I can’t actually stand up straight up there, I tend to turn a blind eye to the mess. Anyway, why did I come up here? Oh, right. Electrical supplies. Ooh, extension cord. I could use that. I’ve got some conduit connectors here. Those will come in handy, but that might not be enough to do what I need to do. And the cool thing was I found five receptacles. These are 20-amp receptacles. That line is a 20-amp circuit, so these are going to work out perfectly. So I don’t think I need to buy any more of those. So yay. All right, I think I have everything I need. But you guys know how it goes. Typically, you know, a DIY project like this is four or five trips to the store. So I have a strict policy on this channel about not showing electrical work. I know enough to be dangerous, but I’ve got no business showing other people what to do, so I’ll keep this stuff pretty generic. As I disassemble the conduit, I start to get a brilliant idea. Oh look, there isn’t anything you can say to me that I haven’t already said to myself. This might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. It’s a giant waste of time, but I’m doing it anyway. I’m painting the conduit and all the electrical components black because it’s going to look cool, and I hate myself for doing it. After using the random orbit sander, I remembered that I have a slick little SurfPrep sander with a soft pad. That’ll be a much better option for wrapping around that half-inch conduit and speeds up the job. Outside, where I can destroy the environment properly, I spray some primer on all the parts. I mean, painting conduit is pretty goofy, but if I’m going to do it, I want to do it right. This time I got some more boxes. These are going to be for wall sconces because I’ve decided to add more to this project. Wonderful. Needed a couple of connectors just in case I need to extend some things. And look, if I’m going for black, I may as well go all the way here. So black receptacles. The conduit coming up from the light switch is sending power to the overhead lights, so I decided to tap into that for a nice row of sconces, which should look pretty cool. All right. This came out cooler than I expected. I do not regret one bit everything that I did to make this happen. And look, if we met in person, I bet you, you know, we get into a deep enough conversation, there would be some things we disagree on. I don’t think this is going to be one of them. This looks cool. If you disagree, I’m not sure we should be friends. Dang, that looks hot. With the sconces installed, I can finally flip the power back on and test my handiwork. All right, so next up, I’ve got a couple of these red Craftsman cabinets. I had one at home and one here at the shop. I think I’d like to use them in this setup. The problem is, they’re just the wrong color. I mean, that’s where we’re at now. I’m just worried about those things. So I’m going to paint them. All right, so let me get the casters off, and then we could prime and paint. I’ll scuff up the surface a bit using that little sander again. After wiping off the dust, I can spray some primer. And for the paint, I’m using Sherwin-Williams’ new Forte line. It’s my first time using it, so hopefully it’ll be durable enough for the job. On the drawer fronts, I switched to a roller and a brush so that I don’t have to worry about doing all kinds of masking, and it turned out all right, if I say so myself. Now for the wood collection. The only reason I have so much material is because we actually sold lumber here at the shop for a very short period of time. I quickly realized that it wasn’t for me, but I ended up with a surplus of material, mostly cherry. I’ll go through it eventually, but in the meantime, I need to find a good way to store it effectively. In this new spot, I’m only going to have room for one lumber rack and the plywood. That’s good enough for now. Next up, we need to assemble the standing desks. FlexiSpot was generous enough to sponsor this part of the video, and we now have two FlexiSpot E7 Plus desks. The first thing you’ll notice is that the desk has four legs instead of two. It’s not just for looks. Four legs give you a lot more stability, especially when the desk is raised up high, and they let this thing hold some serious weight. A typical two-leg standing desk is rated somewhere around 200 to 250 pounds. This one has a 540-pound static capacity. It also gets ridiculously tall. The three-stage legs go all the way up to 51.5 inches, which FlexiSpot says makes this the tallest four-leg standing desk you can buy. You can get it with a bunch of different tops, including solid rubberwood and white oak. And the keypad even has a USB charger built in. You’ll also get a 15-year warranty and a 30-day risk-free return period. And compared to a lot of four-leg standing desks that can cost well over a thousand bucks, the E7 Plus is pretty reasonably priced. FlexiSpot is having their Mega Sale right now, so don’t miss out on your chance to get your own E7 Plus four-leg standing desk. There’s also an upgraded E7 Plus Max, which features a higher load capacity and greater stability, and its 2.0 desk legs can even support up to 880 pounds. And if you have a limited budget, you can choose their two-leg E7 Pro Premium Desk. Use my code for $50 off. FlexiSpot also offers special discounts to military personnel, students, doctors, and more. Thanks to FlexiSpot for their support. All right, so I still have a ton of cable management and all kinds of setup to do. I’m not even convinced that I really want to keep the 3D printer here. But obviously it would be nice and stable in there. I may put it back on the original cabinet where it was before, just to give me more desk surface. And the laser station over here obviously still needs a whole bunch more setup, but I think I am ready to move on to my next thing, which is to make just a very simple vertical storage for these bins. Now, fortunately, we have all the same kind. These are specifically just the Husky ones. Nicole prefers these for whatever reason, and I’m just going to take some measurements and see if we can’t build a vertical four-station or four-bin tower. What’s interesting about these is there really isn’t that much bearing surface if you’re going to do the kind of hanging method here. So I just have to get some measurements so I know the width of this bin from this point over to the other side, and of course depth and height and all that good stuff. Time for some SketchUp. The structure is going to be super simple: four vertical legs, cross pieces to connect them, and some runners that the totes will ride on. While I’m fairly confident in my measurements, I definitely want to double-check that the bins will fit before making anything permanent. I’m using the new Kreg Edge here. Pocket screws would’ve worked just fine, but I’m using this every chance I can get so that I can give it a proper review later. And it made quick work of these joints. For projects like this, I like to use Titebond Speed Set. It really allows me to move fast and get this thing in service quickly without waiting for a long glue dry time. Now I’ll screw this monster together and grab the paint. I’m adding a back panel, more for stability than looks. A structure like this can essentially fold without something like a back panel to help provide rigidity. After the paint dries, I can load it up. So I’ve pulled the desk away from the wall because I have a couple more ideas and things I want to do here to make it look good and be more functional. One is to put a shelf up here. Shouldn’t be too difficult. I’ve got some scrap cherry from an old bed that I dismantled. That will make a great-looking shelf up there. And I want to put up some pegboard. So not just any pegboard. I’m going to use Wall Control. This is really heavy-duty metal pegboard. Wall Control sells all kinds of accessories. You can store just about anything you need. But I think in a case like this, with the kind of tools that we might be using here, it’s nice to have those easily available. Now, the thing is, a couple problems here. One is the depth of the desk. It pushes everything back a little bit. And the other thing is this conduit that’s here. So where I want to mount these is kind of in this area, but this is intended to be mounted directly on the wall. So what do we do? My buddy Matt was here a few days ago and made a great suggestion of just running a couple of wood cleats across, put those into the brick, and then mount these guys on top of those cleats. And that will do a couple of things. It will push everything out a little bit to bypass the conduit, but also because of the desk depth, it’s going to bring it a little bit closer to me and make it a little bit easier to grab when you have to reach over that desk. All right. So let’s get to it. Before the pegboard goes in, I’d like to add a nice little shelf. And we really need to talk about something. I mean seriously, is there a worse sound in the world? This thing is right up there with dentist drills and fingernails on a chalkboard. Anyone that has to do this daily needs some kind of award, because damn. Anyway, a couple of shelf brackets and we’re good, right? Well, it looks like that noise rattled my brain because... nailed it. For extra fancy boy points, I’m going to add an LED strip. I actually already have some of this diffusion track laying around, so I may as well use it. The lights are on order, so I’ll get back to that later. And now I can add some black-painted two-by-fours to the wall for the pegboard. With those cleats installed, the Wall Control goes up pretty quick. And man, that black color is chef’s kiss. And now it’s time to finalize the space. All right, so I didn’t get everything that I wanted to do done. But I think I got enough that I’m at a stopping point now where everything is functional. Right? That’s the most important thing. And I got a lot more space than I had before. So let me just take you on a quick whirlwind tour so you can see all the progress. All right, so right here at the front, nothing’s really changed here. This is my hybrid workbench. I keep it in here because we have it reserved for classes. And same thing for the extra router table. If I had enough room, I’d love to have two router tables, but ultimately, this is just here for when we have classes and too many bodies and not enough tools, so that’s handy to have. Laser. Obviously the laser isn’t moving, but everything about this laser setup is just so much better. I’ve got some nice organization inside the drawers, a whole lot of material. These are actually really heavy-duty drawers, so you could put quite a bit of weight in there, so much so that it’s kind of hard to move. And I’m just super stoked about this setup. I have been working on this little cart that kind of moves around, and I gotta be connected to the laser. I can’t be too far away, but you’re trying to stage material, so having a dedicated space where I could work on some designs and work on sending information to the laser, just a nice, comfortable situation like this is great. And you might think that the Razer laptop is overkill. Well, this is an old gaming laptop that I don’t really use anymore, so it got relegated to CNC and laser tasks. But here with the monitor, now I have a much bigger display. I can use it in this clamshell mode. It works out great. I did bring some plants from home. This space doesn’t get a ton of natural light. I’ve got a couple of windows over here. So I did bring plants that generally will survive a little bit better in lower-light conditions like the ZZ plant. But I think it looks quite nice. A little bit of greenery in a space like this really softens the look. I got a couple of Rockler stools throughout here. These are incredibly comfortable, but it’s just going to be great to be able to work here. And of course, the FlexiSpot desk. I could adjust it to any height, whether I want to sit. Most of the time I do stand when I’m working at a desk, especially in here. So it’s just nice to have that versatility. So no matter who’s working, they can be comfortable. Now, you might remember one of the goals was to completely move all the wood out of here. The problem is I had two racks. I only wanted one to be over there. Well, this is some of the overflow, so there’s a chance that we may wind up getting a shed built here at the shop. And if we do, I could put some of my wood overflow in there and then some of this other stuff in there too, which will really free up this space. So moving on down the line here, these are student workbenches. When we do classes, these are the benches that the students use and they’re mobile. So we roll them out into the main shop. Honestly, now that we have this space, we may even just keep them in here for that purpose. But, you know, in the meantime, they’re just kind of in the way. So again, a storage shed would be great for something like this because I don’t want to get rid of them. I need them. But I’d love for them to be out of my way when we’re not doing classes. Now, this is the one goal where I just couldn’t make it happen. I can’t right now afford to buy a solution, and I did not have time to design and build a solution to correct these steps. For now, it’s just going to be the crazy ladder and the storage will stay here. This is where we have a bunch of templates and just random Wood Whisperer stuff. So this will be a future thing that we’re going to work on. But for now it’s just going to kind of stay as it is. And again, same thing. Some equipment overflow that I don’t need all the time. I’ve got that—oh no, the dust collector. But it’s going to have to live here until it’s ready to be used. Now, back at the front, on the other side, the brick wall, we’ve got the four feet of lumber storage and then my sheet good storage and just a bunch of stuff leaning against it. This is not a long-term solution. I think I may wind up building something very similar to what I built back in Denver, and that is a pullout plywood storage, because when plywood is stacked like this, it is useless to me if I can’t get to a sheet that’s, you know, two or three pieces back without just taking all this crap out of it. It doesn’t work. So I think what we’re going to do is do some sort of a pullout, probably this way. So it’s easier to get sheets in, and then we can kind of push the whole thing against the wall. So maybe that’ll be a future project. But for now this is good enough. And of course, this is clearly the thing I focused on the most this go-around: getting the FlexiSpot desk in here, painting the Craftsman cabinets, getting the Wall Control up there. So I’ve just started the organization on this stuff, but the 3D printer up till now—well, I mean, I’ve dabbled in it a little bit, but it’s really Nicole’s thing. So it’s her organization clashing against my type of organization. So we’re trying to compromise, because I’m very picky about how I organize my tools. She’s a little bit looser with how she does things, but she still needs things to be where she expects them to be. So we’re compromising. We’re working it out. But this setup just turned out great. I have my Sonos speaker in here now. The shelf up top just has some fun little decorations, and I’m not going to water a plant up there, so there’s a little fake plant going over there. We’ve got a nice little spot that we could sit and work, do any preparation or glue-ups or any work that you might need to do on a 3D print. And, of course, the 3D printer over here. And while I really did like the idea of having the 3D printer on the sit/stand desk, especially because you do have to work on this AMS unit—you have to get up there or behind there—it would definitely be more convenient. But I just wanted that space. I wanted that work surface. So we wound up putting it back on the same cabinet it was on before. This is nice and sturdy and has a lot of storage that is specific to the 3D printer, so this is going to work out quite nicely. And of course my quick-and-dirty rack for these Husky bins. That turned out really nice. Nicole loves it. Obviously not my best work, but it got the job done, right? And we’ve got four bins, perfect storage for that. And then of course, that other Craftsman cabinet, which is kind of—not sure what I’m going to do with it yet—but it sits there when we need it. We’ve got our Backside Sandpaper storage here, and you can’t forget the boss’s toilet over there. So that’s it, guys. This has been one heck of a project, and a lot of this was outside of my normal wheelhouse and stuff I don’t usually show on The Wood Whisperer. But I hope you enjoyed it. Hope, at the very least, it inspires you to trick out your space with whatever you’re into, whether it’s laser, CNC, 3D printing, or just a straight-up woodworking shop. So I’m going to link and give you a couple of direct links to some of the shop tours that we’ve done in the past if you want to see more about this stuff and get more inspiration so you can perfect your own workspace. All right. Thanks for watching, everybody. See you next time. Thanks to FlexiSpot for their support.