After a recent move it was time for me to put together my own workspace. Although the space I would be using is far from ideal, at least I would have all my tools together for the first time.

The situation I faced was probably not that unusual so I thought I would share some thoughts and pictures on how I dealt with it.

I have a basement space of just over 200 square feet. The basement has a “floating floor” which is not attached to the walls and is far from level. The idea is that any water pressure that builds up on the outside will slowly seep through and out some drains in the floor. It seems to work, but it means nothing is level and it would be a bad idea to attach anything (especially anything conducting electricity) to the walls. Like most basements, it has low ceilings. Since this house is almost 100 years old there are also large ducts for the add-on AC and several generations of wiring running along the bottom of the joists. Despite this, things turned out ok. I detail my approach in the picture captions that follow.

The raw space. After removing an old store room I began to chalk out the locations of work tables on the floor. I would use these to set the locations for lights and outlets on the floor joists above.

A reverse angle on the raw space. I have begun to transfer the floor chalk marks to the joists. By mounting lights & outlets to the joists above I keep them away from the walls and basement floor. The glass block window has an unused vent that may come in handy some day.

The work tables starting to go in. I used 3 of these 72″x24″ tables for tool stations and one for a workbench. Adjustable height legs are useful. Floor leveling feet are an absolute requirement here since every slab of this floor tilts at a different angle.

This was a major score. A 72″x36″ proper electronics workbench I found at a local office surplus store. Getting it home and into the basement alone was……interesting.

 Almost everything set up. I used an online lumen calculator set to a bright office with dark walls to estimate the lighting. Eight BR40 bulbs fit the narrow and deep spaces between the joists. I went with 4000k high CRI LEDs, which give awesome light and are plastic, cool, and low energy to boot. Ceiling outlets provide drops to power strips on each bench. Lots of rolling storage with nothing on the floor. It’s already full. Typical 🙂

And now for some fun. I don’t know how filament will fare in this high humidity environment (when it’s rainy, at least), but one challenge at a time.