We've been planning on building a dedicated wood shop for years.  An awesome Build Cave just for creating projects out of wood.

But something always seems to come up first.  I'll admit a little bit of that has to do with me still not set on how my dream wood shop will be set up.  Think designing a dream house could be hard?  Designing a dream wood shop is even harder, because that's where I'm going to be spending my time!  And it's probably going to be bigger than my house.

Knowing that we plan to start on a wood shop in the near future, I've put off work on my current work space - a large two car detached garage that hasn't seen a car parked in it in years. 

But finally, last fall, I decided I needed to make some minor improvements to my existing workspace.  I need a clean, organized space to work, where everything is just right, and just where I left it.  I'm also one of those people that can't function in a messy space, so I needed everything put away just so so I can concentrate on the task at hand.

You got a little peek of my neat and tidy corner of the workshop when I shared these sawhorse plans with you earlier this week.  Believe it or not, those dark stained cabinets used to be (and still are) this hot mess -

It drove me crazy, having open shelving with sawdust all over the essential building stuff that I can't live without, but don't want to look at constantly. But I didn't want to be wastful and rip perfectly good shelving out.  

So I built a 1x6 face frame (you can see it in the above photo), using my Kreg Jig -

And then cut some plywood pieces to fit as doors in between the face frame.  I then stained just the face frame and doors with Rustoleum Dark Walnut topped with poly and after letting the finish dry, I hinged the doors on -

How about that?  Because I used scrap 3/4" plywood for the doors, this whole project costs me about $30!!!  

After tackling my workbench, I had one other pretty big BuildCave problem.  My scrap wood.

I designed this wood cart, so I have a spot for plywood in the center, bins for different lengths of scrap wood on one side, and then shelving on the other side for longer lengths of wood.

This is how it turned out.  Those scrap wood bins are life savers.

But I'll be completely honest with you - These rail shelf hardware systems are pretty spendy, and once you load the wood on the shelves, it's not like you are adjusting them.  I wish I'd just made shelves.

A few other things I would change if I could -

- When full of plywood, this cart becomes extremely heavy, so it's very difficult to move around.  I'd consider making the plywood area smaller.

- Consider making the scrap wood bins taller or more defined so that the wood stays in place a little better

- I store stuff on the top too, mostly plywood pieces in squarish shapes too short for the scrap wood bin, but still possibly useful

- This cart is huge, make sure you have space for it, and to walk around it

Check the plans out below and let me know how this lumber cart works out for you if you build it.

So that's my Build Cave!  Don't forget to share yours - there's just a couple days left in this month's #GetBuilding2015 Challenge - someone is going to win a Kreg Foreman Pocket Hole Machine!

Good luck!

Ana