Lots of great comments here for a first studio. I’d like to throw my €.02 on a couple of topics I think are worth unpacking a bit more.
Workspaces are living creatures that evolve as we and our work and our tools do. I think focusing more on experimentation and actually making things is the best way to inform studio design. What do you actually need to make what interests you? I started by reading books and looking at other studios and while that was a bit helpful, I quickly threw it all out and just built what made sense to me based on my interests, tools, budget and materials available. It led to some really interesting breakthroughs in my work.
Heating and cooling in a Michigan garage will probably be more of a concern than anything other than lighting. Here in the hill country of croatia, most buildings are stone with 60cm thick walls and they take about a week to warm up when you move in. A cinder block garage will have some of that thermal mass situation as well. If you leave the heat on low at night it’ll probably encourage more studio use.
Lighting! One of the differences between a pro studio and a beginner studio is the pros understand the importance of lighting. Fortunately LED shop lights are cheap and easily available now. Get more than you think you need. Best to have matching fixtures of the same color temp. I got a bunch from Amazon and was glad I did every day.
Another important thing touched on here but I think deserves more attention is ventilation. Lots of things used in jewelry studios are biologically unhelpful (poisonous). Proper ventilation is very important to your long term health. I learned from my architect and glass flameworker wife that fume extraction systems must be properly sized to be effective. Here’s a few links on the topic.
https://nancylthamilton.com/resources/safety-in-the-jewelry-studio/ventilation/
Consider also that fume extraction is also heat extraction and you need to keep in mind that the makeup air (the air that replaces the air you are extracting) needs to come from somewhere and it probably won’t be heated in the winter. One reason glass studios are so $%#^@ cold in the winter! Fortunately most jewelry work generally requires fewer CFM of extraction than glass or welding.
Have fun and see where the thread takes you.
-Lawrence