AttainableApex

I just started wood working around july 2010.
Here is how it all started.
My father was a finished carpenter, and had a nice shop in our garage. And about 10 years ago my parents got divorced. As he moved out he was unable to take everything in his shop, so it just sat there. Everything sat there just collecting rust and was used to store junk on. In the mean time, i slowly acquired more and more tools and made more and more projects. As i worked more in the garage i got more and more annoyed with the mess, junk, and unmovable router and jointer. So as i worked on my last project, i wrote on my summer to do list, " make carts for jointer and router table". So... as summer finally rolled around, i got to thinking how i would make those carts and the only answer i could come up with was, call my dad. ( Now as a side note my dad and i were not on good terms, i hadn't talked to him in over 5 years. I think another little story just on my father and i would be very entertaining to everyone, it's been pretty crazy). So... i finally got the courage, and talked to him. So, he said he would help me.
The project started very rough. He wanted to take control of the project but I said it was my project and i'm not just being his helper (i have been his helper since i was a kid, i never learned how to use any tool, and just got to sit and watch pretty much). As we started, we started using the rusted tools that hadn't been used in years and that i had grown to hate, because he was using my mom as a storage center. It was a very strange feeling the first time i got to feed wood through my tablesaw, which i had never done in all the years of helping my dad (even on his contractors saw when i was older and helping him on site).
After those carts were made, i took a grinder with a wire brush and cleaned all the rust off and put a bunch of coats of wax on top. After this, i saw that i had this set of drawers that i would love to have on wheels. So i had my dad help me this time on building another one. (The first 2 carts consisted of me just getting to cut everything, and he still controlled how the carts were made). This cart, was my true first woodworking project. i drew plans, measured everything numerous times and tried to fix everything my dad had made a mistake on. Well, it came out dead on and that is when i started ...... building my shop.
It is now a shop. My best friend during this time kept saying "Man your garage is getting nicer and nicer". As i also referred to it as a garage, a couple of times i called it a shop, but still thought of it as a garage. As it was getting nicer i thought, "When does a garage turn into a shop?". That day came the other day when my best friend called it a shop. As i corrected him and called it a garage, i stopped and just looked around. As i looked around, i said "You know what, this is a shop".
I then said to my self, you know im going to join that lumberjocks website now.

There is still much more to add in the middle of this story on how my garage turned into a shop, but i will finish later. I will be adding many pictures, and i really really hope to make a video on my shop and about some of the things i have built.

-- Ben L