New House + New Shop = One Excited Little Dude!

I’ve always been one to jump the gun on good news. Most of the time it comes back to bite me in the butt. Once I start telling other people about good things that are about to happen something always comes up so that good thing ends up not happening. Well, I’ve been holding this one in for a couple months. My awesome wife and I have finally purchased a house. I started the move on Thursday and as I write this on a late Sunday night I’m all moved and about 3/4 of the way unpacked. You don’t realize how much junk you have accumulated until it’s time to move it!

For those interested here’s a little info on the house itself. The house is on .87 acres just outside the city limits which means it’s soooooo much more peaceful at night. Nothing but crickets, frogs, and an occasional distant dog bark. It’s got a small fenced in back yard for the dogs to run around and the entire back yard is shaded from a few old oaks and pines. The fence doesn’t extend to the full property line so my wife and I want to eventually (probably next summer) build a wood privacy fence to run along the perimeter of the property in the back. It’s been vacant for a few months so the landscaping is a little grown up. It’s a three bedroom two bathroom house. We agreed that we won’t purchase any new furniture for the other rooms and instead I’ll just build everything. So that means a bunch of furniture project videos. The house also has a room that I’m calling the sun room. I’ts a 12′ x 12′ room that separates the main part of the house from the garage. It’s an absolutely perfect space for multiple reasons. The north facing windows will never receive any direct sunlight because they are on the north side and the south facing windows lead to the back deck which is covered so no sun comes in from that direction either. And it distances the main living area from the garage which should help reduce noise in the house.left

The two car garage will soon become my workshop. I have yet to measure it but it looks to be 20′ x 20′. The main work area in the apartment shop was 11′ x 21′ so it’s a little bit bigger than what I’m coming from. Because my current layout seems to be working out pretty good I think I’ll just duplicate the layout to the left side of the garage and build a decent size work bench on the other side. Before I can move all of the tools over I need to upgrade a few things. I’m planning on adding a few 8′ strips of T8 fluorescent light fixtures. Not exactly sure how many yet. I may end up just putting two or three and running wires for any other lights that I may need down the road. The concern with the lights isn’t necessarily for the woodworking itself. It’s more for the video aspect. I also need to run three 120v lines and one 240v line. The three regular lines will be for the dust collector, any electrical tool I’m working with, and the last one will be for any floor lights. Luckily this will be a pretty straight forward process as the electrical panel is located on the back wall of the garage.garage

I’m not in the position to go full time online so I still have my day job. That means I can still use the apartment shop until my new space gets setup. I want to have the electrical and lights done before I make the shop move. This time last year I was unable to make a video for three consecutive weeks due to busy season at work. This year I still have busy season to contend with and I’ve added the house move/upkeep and the new shop preparations. That means things might temporarily slow down with my website articles and videos. But that’s just temporary so stay tuned. Lots of fun stuff planned at the new place. Have a good one folks!

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71 COMMENTS

    • hi jay I congratulate you for your new home, RERA is much better in the garage and not forget a thing a woman wants God willing haha! you and I every moment, I remain at your quebec and i love your site and that you do a hi you and your family and god you bénisse.danyboylathe..

  1. I know your pain and excitment. We just bought a new house 2 months ago and I get to share the 2 car garage with the wife’s car. That just means I get creative and will have a 20 minute setup/takedown time.

    Gratz

  2. Totally awesome dude. You are really going to enjoy your new home even more when it sinks in that you can do anyting you want in your new home (wife willing of course). It took me about 8 months before I really understood that if I wanted to knock out a wall to make a room bigger I could (see wife statement above). Good luck to you and your awesome wife and look forward to more of your super neat vids.

  3. Looks great, good sized workshop. Videos of the fit out would be good to see as well. If you can fit it in with the day job and all. Good luck with it all.

  4. Fantastic! Congratulations on the new house. We love the weekly video’s, but go to every other week if needed due to the realities of home/work. We would understand.

    Just a thought 0 You may not be used to it, but a garage as a garage is a great luxury, so a stand alone shop would be a great gift to yourself/family.

  5. Congrats on the new acquisition Jay. You will have a massive job in front of you but just breathe it through. better to slow down and to rush it through as you will be unhappy with yourself if you cut corners. If you find that you can still document the new home’s progress (on top over everything else you do) then great. If you become too busy, the blog/vlog/web can wait for you. You have great talent that we all will wait for when you are ready to reappear. Good Luck. Drink Wine.

  6. Hi, Jay. Congratulations on your home purchase. Here’s to it serving your needs for many years. Wanted to mention to you, too, how much I appreciate the way you refer to your wife (awesome, for ex.). Too often we, men, take our wives for granted and frequently refer to them in less than complimentary terms or make no mention of them at all. It is evident that you value your wife, Jay, and hold her in the high place she belongs. Don’t stop.

    Marty

  7. Toutes mes félicitation Jay, pour toi et ton épouse. Soyez heureux dans cette nouvelle maison qui est magnifique. Prends le temps qu’il te faut, je regarde régulièrement tes vidéos et tu es une vraie source d’inspiration qui m’a motivé à construire cet atelier et investir dans du matériel. je suis en train de construire mon futur atelier. Yannick de Thaïlande

    All my congratulation Jay, for you and your wife. Be happy in this new house which is magnificent. Take time that you need, I look regularly at your videos and you are the real source of inspiration which motivated me to build this workshop and to invest in the material(equipment). I am building my future workshop. Yannick of Thailand.

    Sincerly

    Yannick

  8. Congratulations brother. Really happy for your & your wife.
    Looking forward to seeing how you layout your shop.

    • Thanks Eric. I appreciate it. I think I’ll just duplicate the old shop layout to this one and go from there. It seems to be working well.

  9. Congrats to you and your wife. Looks like a nice house in quiet area. Can’t wait for furniture videos. Best of Luck!

  10. Congratulations jay,that’s wath happen when you do good thins,the live retrieve back to you,enjoy your new house and we follow you on all the projects coming son,good bless to you and your wife.

  11. Grads to you and the little Lady on your purchase of your new house and soon to be your new HOME. Good luck and Good health

  12. Jay, before you move in epoxy coat the floor. This is much easier doing now before you get all equipment set up.

    • I doubt I’ll epoxy the floor. Having a bare concrete floor doesn’t bother me. It’s much better than that darn tile I have in the apartment shop!

  13. This is great Jay, look forward to all of your up coming home projects, best to you and your wife—

  14. Congratulations on the new home. Really enjoy your videos and can’t wait to see what furniture projects you come up with. I’ve made a couple beds, jewelry armoire, bakers table ( which is currently being used as a t.v. stand ha) and a large desk/file cabinets. I too have my shop in the garage, but limited on space due to other items being stored in there. And our h.o.a won’t allow an addition without approval (which means lots of money to match the house properly). So I can appreciate your being excited about the space around you and the sunroom for noise reduction. Anyway, really happy for you and your wife and pray for many more blessings in your future.

  15. congrats on the new house.it’s a very exciting time when you finally take the plunge.looks to be a very nice place and i hope you and your wife will be very happy there!!!

  16. Very excited for Jay. It good to put down roots in something you can claim your own…in 30 years!!

  17. Congratulations Jay. Some thoughts on shop layout. When I built mine I ran three rows of outlets on three different breakers in the ceiling. The two outside rows are switched the center row is not. I hung my lights from chains and added short extension cords to the lights and plugged them into the outside rows. I hung them that way so that if I didn’t like the layout or wanted to change them in the future I could. The other thing is all of the tools are on wheels so I can rearrange them however I want.

  18. I can’t wait to see how you use a french cleat to hang the lawnmower up. And show everyone how it won’t fall down while quoting Chuck Norris. That will be fun.

      • Your going to put a riding Mower on a French cleat , I gotta see that one :)
        Have fun with getting the new House and Shop going, lots of furniture to make to fill up the house.

  19. Nice, can’t wait to see your furniture build videos :D
    Otherwise it looks like a really nice house…

  20. Good luck settling in Jay.I’m sure you and your family will make it into a loving home.
    Looking forward to new projects from a new shop.
    Take it easy man.All the best Gary

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