Building a working stained glass workshop in your home is not as complicated as you might think. I have done it and it works very well.
First of all, it might be informative to point out that our store is actually in the smallest area (room) of our basement. My wife and I made sure we had adequate lighting by installing two 40-watt 4-bulb fluorescent fixtures in the grid of the suspended ceiling. I then installed enough outlets on each wall to handle the electrical load even when we solder. Our lights don’t dim.
My wife found a fantastic table (Ikea – bruised and battered department). It was only $20 and its height is adjustable. This table measures 63″ long x 30″ deep. It’s so perfect for stained glass. Sometimes I want the work surface higher than other times, depending on what I’m doing. I just click on a little control under the table and it moves up or down. Since the two of us do stained glass together sometimes, we built an additional table of similar size and my wife added a padded fabric cover to both. This is great for cutting glass and we don’t risk damaging our cutting blades.
Between each table is the grinder, which we share. A simple homemade wooden cover around the grinder keeps things neater. We have two long shelves on the wall behind our workbench that hold all the supplies.
Glass storage is always a problem, especially if you’re like us and tend to buy clearance pieces from time to time. We have built several stackable “units” that measure approximately 24″ x 13″ high x 12″ deep. Each of these units has vertical partitions approximately 1″ apart that allow us to store our glass. In fact, we have an additional space that allows us to keep the Morton System configured at all times. Our circular saw is also in this room.
Of course, a small TV is anchored in the corner to keep noise out.
Everything in our little stained glass workshop is homemade except for the Ikea adjustable table. We have done a lot of stained glass art in this room and will do so in the future.