Does anyone in here have a woodshop to make money?

Ever figured the number of hours it takes to build and finish a piece of furniture? Nevermind materials and keeping sharp blades.


Don't quit your day job is all I'm saying.

My Dad was a carpenter. Still is to some degree, but he doesn't build for anyone except my Mom's antique shop anymore. He just repairs old furniture or repurposes them into something else for her to sell.

But there was a time that he was very successful and couldn't charge enough to keep people from calling.

If you do good work, people will pay.

Just looking around my house, he built my kitchen cabinets, my dining room table, my breakfast room table, our massive king headboard, my youngest kids bed, practically every side/coffee table in the house, our TV stand, and this desk that I'm currently sitting at.

He has a badass 2 story workshop with every tool you can imagine.

I mean this in the nicest way and this goes for any hobby.

Do you enjoy woodworking?

If no, then why would you want to do it for a living unless it is a path to major income?

If yes, then don't do it for a job or you will end up hating it. If you want to make it a side gig that you can do and sell when you want then fine. But the day you wake up and don't want to go to the shop but you have to because you have a deadline and need the income is the day you start hating it.

I have a good friend and former employee who could easily support himself and his wife making wooden spoons and paddles. He does very well with it as a side hobby

I’m not big on building furniture. My side hobby is finding old wooden furniture destined for the fire pit or dump and getting it back in shape.

I don’t mean restoring antiques or flipping things like you see on YouTube. I mean busted up stuff you dig out of a barn or a burn pile. Everyone in my family now has more old rocking chairs in their homes than could ever be reasonably necessary.

And I mess around on a lathe a good bit.

I’ll never do it for money. If I wanted to make more money, I can work more in my normal job. The hobby would never pay as good. It’s a relief valve from work for me anyway.

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My "retirement" plan is to do woodworking with my spare time and possibly selling stuff but I'm not convinced there is enough in it to make a living off of it. But as a retirement plan, do something creative, productive and bring in a little extra here and there would be perfect.

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It could definitely supplement your retirement.

Once my Dad retired, he and my Mom rented space in a small flea market to sell small items my Dad would make. My Mom would also resell things she found at garage sales. It began as a way to keep them busy and make a little side money.

Well 5 years later they have their own space and own antique store and make between $3-$5k per month reselling junk my Mom finds at garage sales and furniture that my Dad either flips or repairs or repurposes into something else.

It definitely keeps them busy and they have made friends doing this as well. They travel all over "junking".

They love going to Amish country and buying old wagons and repurposing. They can buy an entire old wagon for $100 and come back and sell just an individual wheel for $100 per.

I have a professional level woodshop. Big jointer, big planer, big cabinet saw and big bandsaw. All hooked to a cyclone dust extraction system and all of the above are 240v. I also have a nice Incra router table.

And i have a ridiculous amount of high quality hand tools. Joinery saws, bench planes, specialty planes like router planes rabbet block planes, bench chisels, mortise chisels, spoke shaves, etc. And the normal jigs for them like bench hook and shooting board.

I spend 4-6 hours in my woodshop everyday. I always have several projects going on at once. Currently i am building a console/entry table out of walnut, a Moxon Vise out of maple and cherry and some shop furniture.

My intention is not to make money. It's to have fun and build awesome stuff while staying cool in my air conditioned shop.

Now my wife has some side bullshite going on with a realtor friend of hers. I make dumb arse charcuterie boards and cutting boards and the realtor buys them to give to clients as house warming gifts.

But I can't stand that and I do the milling and ripping, but I make my wife do the glue ups and finishing. I don't have time for that. I want to get back to making furniture pieces that will last well past my lifetime.

I sell stuff all the time. Great side hustle and keeps me out of trouble.

What do you build?

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Somewhat is an understatement. High quality woodworking tools are an absolute pleasure to use. But they're a big financial commitment and have a learning curve.

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And it's not only the tools that are expensive, it's also the accessories that go with them. I've got a 3.5 HP Porter-Cable Router to use for shaping some pretty big profiles.

Well, that is not something you do by hand, so I built a big router table to put it in so it would be more stable when using it.

Then factor in the cost of the bits for cutting those profiles and it can climb quickly. Rail & Stile bits and raised panel bits with 1/2 in. shafts and carbide edged cutters run between $125 and close to $200 each depending on the profile. By the time you accumulate 40 or so bits, you've spent a few grand just for bits alone.