When someone walks into my shop for the first time, their first words are usually,  "Wow! Where did you get all the shop cabinets?"  It's your shop cabinets that determines the functionality your workspace.


We all have different ideas on what our dream shop would look like, and what it would take to reach those dreams. Dream shops are different sizes, feature different machines, and are built for different purposes. One of my hobbies is building wooden telescopes, and another hobby is designing and scratch building RC aircraft. My brother loves building and carving Queen Anne reproductions by hand. Our two shops are far different from each other, because they are set up for our own favorite projects. Sometimes it seems as if there are as many specialties as there are woodworkers. This is just one more reason to learn to custom build cabinets to suit you and your shop!


My shop does not have a lot of high end woodworking machinery, other than my old table saw purchased used years ago, yet the shop was featured in the 2007 edition of America's Best Home Workshops. My shop was picked for this magazine because of my shop cabinets that were custom designed and built over a 20 year span. Designing and building your own cabinets makes it easy for you to make the best possible use of your available shop space, and makes it easier for you to work the way you want to.


Once you learn a simplified method for building shop cabinets, then you can build just about anything you can think of for your shop, and do it without having plans designed by someone else.


Designing and custom building your own cabinets is far less expensive than purchasing prebuilt general purpose cabinets, yet shop-built cabinets are far more practical when you build them to suit your needs, and the space you have available to work in. When you build your own cabinets, they will be better built, out of better quality materials, and more suited to your own special needs than purchased units.

My shop's woodworking area is surrounded by my main workbench, table saw, band saw, air cleaner, router table, and a couple of dozen drawers holding all the small items that are in constant use. It also has a nice size open area for assembling projects.

This small 8x10' model building area contains two workbenches, a large parts cabinet, balsa wood rack, and a small 15 drawer parts cabinet. This work area keeps everything right at your fingertips all the time.

Try to imagine an open top plywood box that is two feet wide by three feet high, by eight feet long.  Now imagine putting all the shop paints, finishes, hand tools, etc. into it. Of course you would never find anything again unless that giant box had a way to magically reach anything you wanted to.  This is one way to look at my 18 drawer workbench. It holds more smaller items than what many may have in their entire shop, yet you can instantly reach everything inside it.

Cabinets don’t take up shop room - they make more room in your shop by making the best possible use of every square inch of valuable shop. Visit some shop tours on many web forums (one example is here) and you will see that they quickly make the difference between an organized shop and one that seems, well, like they could use a few new cabinets. Notice all the wasted space in many shops, between and under machines, benches, and tables. In most shop tours you will see so many places that could be put to better use.

When you get your shop organized, you will discover that you can build all your projects much faster than you could in a less organized shop. All of your tools are instantly right at your fingertips, ready to go. You no longer spend more time looking for things and getting ready to work than you do in actually building projects. You will be amazed at the difference in your productivity a well laid out shop makes.

Some of the first cabinets I made were simple shelf units with doors, built to serve double duty as machine stands, with a vast amount of storage for larger objects under them.


Some of these cabinets have 500 or more pounds on them. The super simple construction used is more than strong enough to support almost anything you care to place on them.


Consider the idea of storage cabinets under your small machines instead of the usual wasted space created by stands and machinery legs.

When this workbench was first finished I thought it was wonderful, but only for a very short time. After a while it became a real pain finding anything that was not in the drawers. Whatever you wanted down below was always hiding behind too many other things…


Before long the whole bench was replaced with the 18 drawer bench show above. It doesn't take much experience to find that drawers are the ideal storage medium for all but the largest items.

Once you decide that drawers are your favorite means of storing shop tools and stuff, they kind of grow on you.


For those who think that cabinets like these are too hard to build without a shop full of professional tools, consider this: The three cabinets on the left were all built before my shop had a table saw. All the parts were cut out on a band saw, and then glued and nailed together. They are now 20 years old and still working like new! Building cabinets like these is not nearly as hard as you think it is!

This workbench may not look so simple until you see just how few parts are actually used in its construction. You can build these cabinets any size you choose, and no fancy drawings are necessary. I use a simple hand-drawn sketch to write a few dimensions on, and start cutting out the parts.

PSC will take you step-by-step through designing and building your own custom cabinets. The construction methods used are far easier than you can imagine! Notice the low parts count used in this eight-drawer workbench. All of our designs can be built quickly and easily, even by beginners.

Once you learn basic cabinet making, you can easily build other shop equipment that makes the best possible use of every square inch of space available. This shop air filter uses a furnace fan, and sits right next to the workbench where the most shop dust is produced. It doubles as a workbench extension.


Notice how little space the actual router uses in this flip-top router table. By using a flip top, tool changes are a snap, and much space is saved for better uses. Of course dust collection from a dedicated shop vac keeps the table clear and the router dust to a minimum. Ear protectors are stored in the false drawer in front of the router, while the five drawers produce a huge amount of tool storage.


As you read woodworking magazines  and cruise around woodworking forums, you will pick up new ideas that might make a welcome addition to your own shop. Learn my quick and basic construction methods from Practical Shop Cabinets, and you will be able to build just about anything you can imagine!


I hope these ideas are some help to you in building your own shop, and learning basic cabinetmaking. After building over two dozen shop cabinets, plus furniture for two home offices, it is still amazing to me just how simple cabinetmaking can be. And that really makes me wonder how woodworking magazines can keep on featuring projects that are so needlessly complicated - far more so than what is really required. I'm still laughing at the "Ultimate Router Table" featured in a recent magazine. It had drawers nearly at ground level, two narrow doors where drawers should have been, and a non-enclosed router so the noise would be very loud. It didn't even have dust collection as standard - it was an option! Sorry, I've just been spoiled by my own cabinets that work much better.


If you missed the author's shop tour,  click here to see many more of Tom's shop cabinets.