From a rather young age I’ve always hated the song “There’s a Hole in the Bucket”. It drove me crazy that he wouldn’t just patch the bucket just enough to get enough to get the whet stone wet. Then he could have sharpened his knife and done the job right.
It would seem like we often find ourselves in circular situations. When you have extra money do you buy tools or materials? When there’s time to be in the shop do you work on the workbench you’ve been inching along on for over a year, organize the space or build something? I usually end up taking the “a little of this, then a little of that” approach.
Over the summer I ended up with several piles of wood taking up space on my shop floor. A pile of 2×4’s that had been chopped out of trusses set aside to make a closet in the basement, a pile of rough sawn oak on saw horses I brought in from drying, the beams and other misc. wood for the shop floor and finally a pile of stickers for the oak logs I had waiting in the yard to be milled.
All of this translated into a shop that more like a “death trap” while I was putting the shop floor. Everything was shoved to the side with various piles to work around. In the end I decided that 4 sections would be enough floor for now :0). It was a very exciting day when I laid the last brick in this corner! But there were still lots of leftover odds and ends from doing it :0/
Kaylee and I spent time in October putting the closet into her room and shelves in the storage room. One pile down ;0)
Once it cooled off enough to not have hot 90 degree wind blowing across fresh cut lumber, I started milling the logs and stacking them. This reduced the pile of stickers considerably. Second pile reduced :0). This just left the dry oak on the saw horses and the left overs from the shop floor.
The thing about rearranging is that you need to make decisions about where to put things. As you know, choices have consequences. If this goes here, then that needs to go there. It can be overwhelming at times because some choices are harder to undo than others. Not everything in the shop is on wheels :0).
I knew I needed more wood racks and had two choices of where to put them. After deliberating and stepping over hazardous piles for a few weeks while I laid the shop floor, I finally decided that extending the existing wood rack all the way to the floor was the best choice.
Finally room to get all of the piles off the floor!!! Except I took a picture before I had all of the piles off the floor :0). Anyhow, time to move on…this is shop organization, not fine carpentry…next on the list: convert the kitchen island top into two shelves, destroy the rest of the island. The kids rather liked the destroying part. Net result, I have a place to set the bench top tools when not in use and a shelf for screws and glue!
The local grocery store was remodeling and had piles of pegboard sitting by their dumpster. I asked if I could take it and came home with a pile of pegboard and 1/4” masonite. Finally a place to hang my aluminum bar clamps that have been shunted from one flat surface to another since arrival last Christmas. Maybe someday I’ll replace the plastic pegs I used to use at craft fairs with metal ones that don’t sag…..at least they’re on the wall!
And speaking of being on the wall, since I was on an organization roll, I hung up my brooms again, after being down for months, they once again have a home, along with the light ladder! What am I going to do when I no longer have to stand in the middle of the shop and spin in circles looking for a broom?
Last but not least, I had a couple of men help me move my drill press and it is now anchored to the concrete floor! sad to say that it took me a week after they moved it to get it anchored, must have been busy with other things….It took all of 5 minutes to drill the holes, pound in the bolts and tighten them down.
Some days it’s not very exciting taking the time to organize the shop. Especially when I still have the pile of wood that needs to become an Adirondack chair and my kids are pestering me about who is going to get a lift bed first, and they still want a desk, and on and on. It will come, someday ;0)
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