Good Shops Aren’t Clean

Our shop? Totally full of sawdust/metal chips/mess. We like the idea of a shop that’s full of tools you actually use. Toolmonger’s own Nick Carter sent in this fine example of his work space a few days ago. Though it’s not clean and shiny — there are enough metal shavings lying around to make you itch for a week — Nick obviously loves to work in his shop. You can’t ask for more than that.
We dig the bins and storage spaces under the lathe. This shop sees a lot of projects get completed — a solid reminder that it’s not what the shop looks like but what you can build in it that counts.
Toolmonger’s Photo Pool [Flickr]
A little chaos and disorder always leads to more creativity and fun!
The perfect shop:
1) Organized enough to find stuff.
2) Clean enough to be safe.
3) Dirty enough that you don’t mind making a mess.
What’s funny is that’s my shop after cleaning up.
My shop is small, so everything has it’s place (more or less) and after a couple of tasks I take the time to put everything away.