A Productive Sunday

Given that I anticipate having more time to spend on our puzzles now, yesterday I decided that I needed to get my work area in the garage in shape so I can go out and work without having to do a massive shuffle every time I want to get busy.

When you know that it’s going to add an hour on to your shop time just to shuffle things around between getting to your machines and then putting all that stuff back, it makes it hard to convince yourself that you can go out and work.

Now, however, while the state of affairs in the garage is not, by anyone’s definition, close to that state of entropy one could call organized (not even mine – and according to my wife I have a fairly relaxed definition of the word), it is possible to go out and work with only having to move a couple of things. And if it stays nice today those things will be going out in to the shed.

There’s a non-working lawnmower sitting out in the front yard with a “FREE, non-working” sign to go on it (and I’ll list it in the local Freecycle group as well), 2 very full trash cans and several bags of trash waiting pickup at the end of the drive, several things moved up into storage in the attic, and a grandson’s dresser in the house ready to be moved into the shed.

There’s an old pink and white dresser (most drawers missing, a chance to practice building some), a printer table, and an end table just to the left when you walk in the garage door that are being used for storage (they used to be in the middle of the floor.) The jointer is sitting in front of the workbench (which is next to the aforementioned storage), the table saw is in the middle of the floor and there’s a luggable (wheels are planned at some point) work surface with a couple of tools on it.

No, it’s not the ideal work area yet. It doesn’t come close to the organized shops that the professional woodworkers I’m acquainted with have set up – but it is much more conducive to getting out and working now.

At some point I plan on replacing the current storage with a couple of wheeled surfaces with storage underneath so I can have a better place to mount the drum sander and planer, but that will have to wait for employment to come my way again.

So, what have you done to improve your conditions?