The Big Think

I spent five hours today putting a floor on the attic over the garage. The access hole for the attic is 2 feet by 18 inches, so any wood that went up there had to be small enough to fit. As you can imagine, it was like putting a puzzle together. While hunched into a tiny cramped space less than two feet tall. While breathing airborne rat poop. What a joy.

Fortunately, I now have a whole lot of usable space up there. The “floor” looks like a patchwork quilt, but it’s done forevermore. I moved all of the Christmas decorations back up there and shoved them to the nether recesses of the space, then moved a bunch of other stuff up as well- summer shop fans, Erin’s train set, tons of plastic tool cases, spools of wiring, etc… all the detritus of house ownership. I must have made 50 trips up and down the ladder, but the shop looks emptier now that I’ve got some of that junk out of the way.

I came to realize today that I’m just about at the max-out point for the shop. I can’t afford the space for another major tool (fortunately, I don’t need one), and even minor tools, like a scroll saw or a stationary belt sander, will have difficulty finding a home. I’m also starting to run into the nice problem of having too many smaller tools. I could dump them all into a box or shove them willy-nilly into a drawer, but I like organizing my tools around shared functions. Chisels go here, screwdrivers there, etc. I’ve started slowly accumulating metalworking tools as a result of an absolutely smashing Sears coupon ($5 off $5 or more!). Over the last two weeks I’ve purchased $200+ in hand tools for around $50, but I don’t have the dedicated space to put them all, so I’m going to have to figure out some kind of solution. The shop is very organized, but each space is starting to get crowded. Maybe another cabinet?

I’m always amazed at how fast time goes when I’m in the shop. The 5 hours in the attic, even though it was uncomfortable and hot, only felt like a couple of hours.

Next week: another prop. Not as big as the last ones, but it’s harder (electrified, for one thing). I’m still not sure how I’m going to do it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 at 10:26 pm and is filed under Woodworking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.