I’ve had shops in garages, an old factory building, and two cold storage lockers—one where cider apples were stored and another in a former meat-processing plant. But like most craftsmen, many of my shops have been in basements, which is why I was impressed by the video tour of this basement workshop.
The Bellevue Woodshop has all of the usual features that make it challenging to work in a basement: a low ceiling, beams and support posts, an uneven floor, and a cramped and cutup work area. There’s no fixing most of those things, but the owner did a nice job organizing the space and customizing or building much of the equipment it contains.
I was particularly interested in the following features: 00:30 His home-made CNC machine
00:50 Use of an old refrigerator compressor to provide vacuum for clamping
01:05 Electrical receptacles along the edge of the work surface. This is just one of many to be seen in the video. The shop is in Norway, which explains the Euro-style receptacles. The owner is Norwegian but has friends and relatives in the U.S.—hence the U.S. flag.
01:45 Great small parts storage in drawers
02:15 Fastener storage—I like that he labeled them
03:05 I like the way he customized this cheap drill press, with an LED light and a digital caliper depth gauge.
04:30 Glass front storage cabinets
08:25 “Crawl space” storage of hardwood lumber not ideal in terms of moisture. Unless there is outdoor access to this area, it must have been quite a challenge to get all this material in there.
09:35 Like the roller at the bottom of his sheet good rack
10:30 I’ve never had a shop with a rock ledge coming up through the floor, but I did have a dirt floor basement shop with a seasonal creek flowing through one end of it.
13:03 That is one impressive looking home-made table saw. The top isn’t stone; it’s plastic laminate with a stone pattern.
