I built my 350 square foot shop in my backyard with the help of my brother Mike. He's built many beautiful custom houses over the years and this was a simple project for him. Not so for me and I was very grateful for his help. It represents a bit of a full circle for me: my first shop was about 200 square feet and between that first one and this one there have been several more, ranging from 1,000 to 5,500 square feet. I wasn't building instruments in any of those shops of course. Didn't even play an instrument during that period of my life or even think that I could, let alone ever build one! 

This shop is perfect for my needs—and is set up primarily for building instruments. It is just the right size for one person, with climate control and with all the machine tools on wheels so I can move them as I need. 

The gallery below consists of a series of images that roughly follow the 'order of operations' for building a mandolin, at least as I do it. Kinda. Sorta. These pictures were taken at different times and of different instruments over quite a few years. So, for what it's worth, here ya go.