There are the plans you make, and then there’s reality. I hate reality.

I talked last time about working backward for design plans, but I learned a lot about my general shop planning from the same project. The good news is that my design for my new woodshop worked out “almost” exactly the way I’d planned. Notice those quote marks.

When we moved to our new home last year I lived every woodworker’s dream: Building a brand new shop in a large, totally empty space literally from the floor up. Framing, electrical, lighting, HVAC, tool placement – everything. I implemented the build slowly and for the most part it’s perfect. However, I now need to backward plan a few things to make it perfecter.

For one thing I planned for lots and lots of outlets; I put them everywhere. But for some reason I didn’t anticipate a need for outlets near the back door, and realized my error the first time I went to plug in a shop vacuum back there. A minor inconvenience easily fixed with an extension cord for now, and a new outlet back there later.

I also have some shadowy areas, and since I do a lot of woodworking photography this is a bigger issue. Some portable spot lighting takes care of that for now, and a redo of my general lighting later when I have the time will fix that permanently.

And the dumbest planning misstep? My office door opens the wrong way. Because of a ceiling beam the door had to open to the left, which is how I planned that wall. But I kinda planned the wiring separately from the door, and the switch is also on the left, meaning the switch is behind the door when you open it. My clever backward planning for this?

Just ignore it till I get used to it.