MBD
knotscott; That is too cool! I had no idea that Grizzly offered such a tool.
A workshop is such a person space that it is hard for one woodworker to help another with its arrangement. However, there are some principles that can be followed to get the most out of the space one has.
1) Get rid of stuff you do not need. It is a constant struggle for me to get rid of stuff, like cut off scraps and tools that have not seen the light of day for years.
2) Go vertical. Wall hanging cabinets and shelves around the perimeter offer a ton of storage. Items requiring floor space can often tuck under the cabinets. I have used about all the available vertical space in my shop. Shop accessories, fasteners, cauls, clamps, etc. are consuming wall space and are out of the way. Clamps, levels, marking tools, push pads, and other junk set on shelves or hang from screws in the walls.
3) Keep it neat and tidy. Clutter in a small shop just makes it hard to do good work and it can become a safety issue. From time to time, I go around the shop and pick up and put away items I used but left lying.
4) Establish a Standard Height for Stationary tools. I keyed off my table saw table height from the floor to establish my standard height because it is not mobile and work horse. I raised the table saw when I installed it, giving more height for other tools. Every other tool that has a work surface, such as the router table, the downdraft sanding table, and work bench do not exceed the height of the table saw. The workbench is on the infeed side of the table saw and the router table, when not in use, has the fence removed and is stowed on the side of the router table and the router table serves as the outfeed table for the table saw.
5) Go mobile. It has already been suggested to add casters. Beware all casters are not the same. Casters have various load rating. Only buy casters that will handle the load. If the load exceeds the caster's load rating, it will not roll easily and eventually will fail. Also the height of the caster is important. The casters raise the height of whatever it supports. If too large, the caster could raise the supporting tool above your standard height. I have casters on all my tools except the table saw, which is the center of the shop. I am constantly moving the workbench to get just that little extra room I need.
6) Get a tool. One tool that could overcome the space problem the breaking down a 4' x 8' sheets of plywood is a track saw. The track overcomes the problem I have in keeping the saw running true and against a guiding straight edge. The track saw always cuts straight and easily stows out of the way. You could buy the Festool or Dewalt track saw systems with plunging saws for a lot on money, or buy a track system that retrofits to you circular saw for a couple hundred dollars.
7) Plug the Holes. In my shop, I found naturally formed cubby holes in various place. For example, the table saw has a 3' x 3' extension table. I have a cabinet in the space below the extension table. The workbench also was open between its legs. Again I filled this space with a cabinet and now store my handheld power tools there. The cabinets have the advantage of restraining dust and debris getting on every stowed in the cabinets. Also cubby holes can be used to stow a bench top tool such as a planer or spindle sander.
8) Get a Good Plan. A good plan is a huge benefit and in my judgement critical for optimizing shop space. It is easy to make changes on the plan, rather than straining the back to move tools around. The Grizzly tool that knotscott mentioned is one approach. My shop layout is locked in a CAD program I bought.
But if you do not have the time, money, or patience for learning, getting, and/or using CAD, there is a low tech way to develop the shop plan. By the way, once you have a shop plan, you will find it indispensable whenever confronted with "where to put the new tool" problem, like that Dust Collector you are considering.
The low tech plan starts with a trip to an office supply store, where large format (2' x 2') graph paper is purchased. The shop room is drawn on the graph paper to scale at the largest scale you can make work on the graph paper. Separately, cut out each tool that takes floor space, also at the same scale as the shop room. With all the tools represented by these cutouts, the cutouts can be positioned at various places in the shop. If you do not like the cutout idea, buy some thin architectural overlay paper. It is see through and can be purchased in a large format. Overlay the architectural paper over the graph paper and draw away on the overly paper. You can try several competing layouts on separate sheets of architectural paper.
