Cabinet Saw Room Refinements Part 1

For some context, this room is located next to the garage and is connected to the main workshop at the other side. This area was mostly filled with dirt and rock when we first moved in, but has since been converted into a very functional area (see elsewhere in this blog, natch): 

Apart from the table saw and the jointer, everything else is on wheels, and it's all capable of being connected to the dust extractor.

So, no problems with any of that, but there is some room for improvement to the storage options. The top edge of the foundation that we spent months installing makes a sort-of shelf and that is it:

This is how the concrete looks with everything cleared off.  I've wanted to make this area more storage and display friendly for a while. The first step of this process is installing a level timber shelf which I can build cabinets or more shelves on top of. 

The top edge of the concrete is actually more or less level, but the front face is far from straight or flat. I broke out the laser level to help assess the situation: 

As usual my shop cat was on hand to help with aligning the laser.

I'm taking measurements from the edge of the sill plate which is the only consistent datum point:

The shelf is made from some pieces of leftover siding and will extend 12-1/2 inches from the sill plate. It is difficult to line up the edge of the board with the laser, so I am drawing a pencil line half an inch from the edge of the board and aligning that with the laser:

As I mentioned above, the top of the concrete is more-or-less level...I want my shelf to actually be level, so I ground down the high points and planned the underside of the boards as necessary to achieve this:

I used countersunk tapcons to attach the boards to the concrete: 

I'm adding a perpendicular panel in front/below the shelf. This board is just a backer for anything I want to wall-mount below the shelf.

The front edge of the concrete has a lot of variation - some of the early forms were not strong enough and suffered some bowing when we poured the foundation.  I had to make some custom shims to keep the backer board flat:

The shims were anchored to the concrete with tapcons and then the backer board was attached with brad nails:

Far end done:

Where the concrete was bowed the most, I had to use a mixture of 1/4" plywood and some pegboard instead of the 3/4" siding to keep everything flat. 

This is with some of the tat restored. I will be building some cabinets in this area in the future.