cleaning up the shop

I’m not always the neatest person, and my workspaces often reflect that. I can handle a certain amount of mess on my desk, in the shop, or on the kitchen counter. But if I let it go too far it becomes impossible for me to new work without cleaning. I think my shop recently got to that point. 

It was easy to let things get to this point with such a big project going on, but the basement is winding down and I needed to find some space to paint and cut the moldings. Looking at everything I had left over from drywalling I was wondering if I was ever going to get the space ready to do any other projects but as it turns out it was a new project that helped me clean back up.

At least I had room to frame some of this up.

I had a bunch of 2x4s left over from thinking I was going to have to do more framing on the basement to clean up. It occurred to me more shelving would help get organized in the garage, but I didn’t want to make anything until I got cleaned up. Kind of a catch-22. Eventually I said ‘screw it, let’s just clean up by using these extra 2x4s to make shelves’ and here we are.

Not great looking, but there's potential...

This was with the wife’s blessing, and once I had the initial frame she even had the good idea to leave the bottom half of one side open to store some of the bigger stuff we’ve got in the garage, like the kids’ wagon. She’s so cool. Even after I told her I would need to take another trip to HD to get more 2x4s to achieve the finished product. While I was still trying to clean up left-over material. Yeah, that went over well.

Bingo. Let's get organized.

Somehow I found the room to frame these up and fill them out. I started with 8-foot 2x4s and chopped 17 inches off each one to make the shelf brackets. At 17 inches wide that’s big enough to make each shelf out of 4 2x4s but instead I just used 2 and covered that with left over drywall. That meant fewer new boards to buy AND better use than just trashing the extra panels, a win/win. Getting all of this out at least gave me room to paint the molding, and now I don’t feel like I’m on the edge of a nervous breakdown when I walk into the shop to cut it on the miter.

Much better.

Purchase list: 

12 left-over 2x4’s, already purchased plus 10 more
50 pack of 2 ½ inch kreg screws