Gears Slowly Turning
The… gears… are… turning… slowly…
Well we got the place, but that's old news now. Its no surprise that the garage became the last priority. I moved enough of my basic tools to the new house to give it a complete face-lift, inside and out.
I did a lot of interior remodeling (trim, cabinets, paint, electrical, plumbing, added closets, changed out every fixture in the house, new floors, windows, bathroom remodel, etc) and completely re-landscaped / hardscaped the back yard (sod, rock, pavers, built benches, and I even poured a concrete natural gas fire pit)
So the house is awesome now. TINY but really cool. I'll post some photos soon.
As for the garage, I finally got started. Here is how its been going:
Phase I: Garage becomes staging area for moving boxes.
Phase II: Most of the boxes get unpacked. Some basic tools move in to work on house.
Phase III: Several months go by and garage becomes giant messy tool box. No way to organize tools. Most of them end up strewn about on the floor.
Phase IV: Eventually I hang some second-hand cabinets and bring my roll-around tool box and sort-of organize.
Phase V: Life goes on as we gradually settle into house. House projects never really end. Garage still a mess. Eventually realize the huge storage potential in attic above garage, but ceiling must be reinforced first. Finally purchase 2×6s and OSB subfloor… let sit in garage for a while.
Phase VI: Get a buddy to help me hang the 2×6s!!! Get half of the ceiling reinforced and subfloor in place.
Phase VII: Concede that I can't put it off any longer… its finally time to go to my parents and in-laws houses and collect 30+ years worth of stuff thats been stored in their attics, garages and sheds. Stuff they saved from when we were babies, stuff from our childhoods, college years, our wedding, tons of crap. About 4 truckloads worth.
Phase VIII: Comb through it all. Figure out what we need and don't need. We can't afford to keep ANYTHING extra in this tiny house.
Phase IX: Yard sale. Oh yeah. Epic yard sale.
Phase X: Organize whats left and put it up in the finished half of the above-garage attic storage space.
Phase XI: See garage floor for first time since we bought the house, get inspired, buy new table saw.
---> This is where I'm at now.
Ok, so maybe its not a new table saw, but I found one of these:
Which is perfect for my new little shop because its got built-in dust collection! And I'm also impressed with how quiet it is.
So then I ordered one of these:
And one of these to save space:
Which will (believe it or not) replace this:
I'm quite proud of it but I just won't have the space for a huge dedicated router table anymore. I may re-purpose it as a miter saw table or assembly table however.
That router table is kind of a celebrity here on Lumber Jocks. It was the first of its kind on this site, and I've seen dozens of "Blake-inspired" versions over the years. It still shows up on the first page of
Most Favorited Projects out of almost 100 thousand projects!
Anyway, I'm going to be getting rid of some things and making room for the bare minimum.
Here is my old shop:
http://lumberjocks.com/Blake/workshop
The new (smaller) shop will have:
- Table saw/router table combo
- Miter saw
- Band saw
- Drill Press
- 13" Planer
- 6" Jointer
- Small hand tool workbench
- Tool box
- Oscillating spindle sander
- Sharpening station
Things I will probably sell:
...So if anybody is interested and lives close enough let me know (Santa Cruz, CA).
Anyway, its good to be back on LJ. I can't wait to start building again.