Not everyone leaps into woodworking with both feet landing in a pile of machined sawdust. Some people do a fine job of creating wood pieces from an alcove in a high-rise apartment; so if you don't have a proper woodshop, take heart.

Woodworking in the home does require some adjustment. If you have basement space you can convert and vent to the outside, you're set. If not, you'll have to pick tools and projects with some limitations in mind: noise, for one thing, and sawdust for another.
But instead of bemoaning what you cannot do, turn your thinking around to learning the many and varied aspects of woodworking you can do.

Hand tool techniques can be used for marquetry, inlay, intarsia, carving, and all forms of traditional Westernized and Japanese joinery traditions. If a new woodworker takes the time to train her hand and eye to hand tool techniques, she later learns use of machine tools more quickly and accurately than if she started off with electric planers, jointers, table saws, etc. One reason for this is you are first learning about wood and what to expect of it, instead of first learning the use of machinery.

When purchasing tools for woodworking, think in terms of the basic operations you'll be dealing with: measuring, cutting, drilling holes, joinery, and finishing. Hand-turned drills, often called 'egg-beater' drills, are one way to do a job. A "brace and bit" is available for larger work, and small "auger gimlets" make quick and easy entry holes. You will also need a hand-held countersink to set screw heads in flush with the surface of a board.

If you are serious about learning woodworking, mortise and tenon joinery will soon be on your list of techniques to master, so buy good bench chisels to begin with and protect their sharp edges. A full set is not necessary, but expect to pay from $10-$35 each for 1/4", 1/2" and 3/4" chisels, the most commonly used sizes. Invest in one or two heavy mortising chisels with a thick blade: 1/4" or 3/8" wide. When you cut a mortise with one, you'll be surprised at the power they wield.

Less expensive chisels are often marketed with inferior steel, and are either impossible to sharpen or will not hold an edge long enough to be of any use. A wood mallet or small, acrylic-head hammer works best with heavy-duty chisels. No matter what tools you buy, learn to sharpen and care for them.

You'll need some type of workbench. Hobbyist benches only 36" long are sold with wood end-vises, but they are narrow and will need to be weighted or stabilized in the legs. One solution is to attach a wide piece of 3/4" plywood or medium-density fiberboard (MDF) to the bottom of the legs from underneath, then place a foot on it to steady the little bench when hand planing or doing heavy work on it. This may not work well on thick carpet. A heavy table or desk may suffice for a workbench, if you have enough edge overhanging it to attach a vise and make room for clamping. Small, fold-up sawhorses are another useful amenity. They will support work for cutting with a handsaw and can serve as legs for an assembly table if you simply lay a half-sheet of plywood over them.

Is the spare bedroom getting filled up yet? Don't forget some system for storing the wood you buy: perhaps a roll-around cart with a base wider than the top so you can lean wood in toward the center cross-bar and have an open bin as a catch-all beneath.
You'll need a wide tabletop or shelf to store veneers flat, and a rack on the wall or a cupboard near a window to store glue and finishes where they can be ventilated by a fan during use. Flammables should be kept in a metal storage unit.

You'll be buying clamps, probably more every year, so take time to organize them on a wall-mounted rack (they're heavy; be sure you anchor any such rack in the upright studs of the wall) or build a square tower, heavily weighted at the bottom, to stand them in and hold them all.

Measuring and marking tools are important. Buy a scratch awl and a steel straight edge. Get a marking gauge and a good tenon saw. A pencil compass will mark out circles, and a French curve template will help with rounding off square corners or drawing a small ellipse. An art store can supply you with an architect's T-square for panel work, but a cabinetmaker's square is an essential in woodworking. Be willing to buy a good one, and test it often by holding it to a known straightedge, marking up the length of it and then flipping it over to compare the perpendicular line to its mirror image. If they don't match, either adjust the square by tapping it lightly into place, or toss it and buy a better one. An out-of-square square is useless.

Set up a place to use sandpaper. Even a large cardboard box open on one side and with a hole for a shop vacuum hose poking through it, would work to draw sawdust. Maybe you have a deck or balcony where you can set up a sanding station outdoors. See that you don't let the dust build up in a cloud, and always wear a facemask to avoid breathing it in.

Arrange task lighting with clamp-on, swivel desk lamps so you don't throw a shadow on your work. Good lighting will limit mistakes in marking out and help at finishing time to show wet/dry spots of moisture absorption or flaws in prepared woodwork before finishing.

Hand planes are essential for dimensioning and surfacing your material. As you learn to use hand planes, you may decide to acquire a wide selection of them, as they are each suited to their own purpose. For a beginner, I'd recommend two, possibly three, to start out with.

First of all is the standard #5 bench plane, called a jackplane. It is 14" long, with a 2" wide cutting iron, and can be used as a scrub plane for hogging off heavy material with one blade and as a finishing plane with another blade. The #5 is the workhorse of the shop and can be adapted to many uses.

The second one is a little rabbet plane, the Stanley #92. It is 3/4" wide and 5 1/2" long. The blade is the full width of the body, allowing you to trim material right to its edge. The toe piece detaches so it also works as an open chisel-plane, allowing the blade to cut into corners. A standard block plane is the third choice. Its lower blade angle makes it useful on end grain, as well as general purpose planing.

One machine you may want to include in a household woodworking area is a scroll saw. For under $200, it will cut piecework up to two inches thick. It's quiet, making no more noise than a sewing machine, and will cut curves, straight lines, bevel cuts, cross cuts, and interior cuts with the blade threaded through pre-drilled holes. It is slow in thick woods, but it is not a toy, and has been used for everything from cutting out wooden spoon blanks to shaping a Queen-Ann leg for a coffee table. It's probably the best solution for an in-home power tool.

As you practice your new woodworking skills with various hand tools, don't become discouraged. If your first tenon makes a sloppy fit into its mortise, examine it to see why. Is the shoulder cut square to its face? Is the tenon wide enough? One excellent beginner's guide is Jim Tolpin's "Measure Twice, Cut Once" from Betterway Books (1993.)

If you prefer intarsia or carving, you may need a different set up of tools, but many things can be done in a small space, quietly and efficiently. The key to beginning in woodworking is to get past the "I can't" hurdle and look around you to ask, "Okay, what can I make with what I've got?" Believe me, with a little practice, you will surprise yourself.