Cleanup Progress #1: Cleanup has begun

I know the feeling…I get comments from my wife about the condition of my shop as well. She will even refer to it as the “Wood Slop” :) But she does like the end products coming out of it.

-- Greg - Charles Town, WV

Fortunately I have the basement to myself – if you don’t count the spiders and other critters.
Generally speaking, some part of it, if not most of it, is always a mess.

-- I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso -- http://blanchardcreative.etsy.com -- http://snbcreative.wordpress.com/

I really try to clean before I leave the shop at night, but it is an effort. I try to vacuum up the sawdust and put tools away. Luckily my vacuum is really quiet, so if it is late I do not feel guilty about using later in the evening.

The fact that it is a garage that must house the cars in the winter keeps me in good practice of cleaning and putting stuff away. Just don’t look in the basement…

Wow, Rookster, on your website you have quite the to – do list!

-- John

very rewarding when you can see a difference.

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Over the span of the last 5 years, I’ve transformed our basement into workout room + home theatre room + storate + furnace room + workshop. Each room has been in a state of 90% competedness for the last year as I find the entire task so overwhelming at this point, I needed other distractions. Reading your post, I should reall get down and put the baseboards in the workout room and finish the ceiling. I supposed I should finish the built in for the theatre and install the toilet in the bathroom…then do the venting and prepare for the electrical and piping for the air conditioners…oh good grief…I think I’ll take the kids to the playground instead…then I can think about how I’m going to replace the windows in the office….

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

Tom, you are too funny.
What’s the Roger’s commercial?? Don’t pause life.

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

I like the sound of your plan Rookster. Breaking a big task into small manageable pieces will get the job done shortly. You could set aside one area for those things that might go to the dumpster, and let them set for awhile covered. If you do not uncover them for 6 months, then you could probably just toss them and not look back. That way you did not make a snap decision, but were able to reason out what you really needed and what you do not.

I feel for you Mot. My big bugaboo right now is the paperwork. Keeping up the books and such for my business. I look for about any thing else to do rather than that. Also, taking care of all my old papers, receipts, etc. I have collected through the years in my regular life. I have a few piles of them in the den. It should not take long, but I so dread going through them.

-- Bill, Turlock California, http://www.brookswoodworks.com

Good luck!

-- Jesus is Lord!

Thanks for all the comments and encouragement! I got another bit done yesterday: sorted and stored the mechanics tools I got for a bargain in the tool chest intended for their storage. Now I can use the tools and get rid of the box :-)

John: I’m trying to adopt the “clean up at the end of each session” habit. Last night, I got all of the ratchets and sockets put away and the bench back to zero. I fixed a wooden puzzle this morning and put all the toys (um, tools) back when I was done. Even made a point of showing this to my daughter as proper procedure. Now if I can just follow my own example, I’ll be fine ;-)

Bill: good idea about covering the dumpster items for 6 months. I might well use that: the real problem is useful items that I will probably never use. But breaking this into manageable chunks mean I can freecycle or eBay items as I come across them…

Cheers!

-- Rookster, (http://www.robertkarl.org/woodworkingblog/)