Garage/reading room

I had some wood shelving that was up in the condo but hasn't found a home in the new house yet that I've been wanting to put to work, and the shop getting reorganized this week gave me chance to let inspiration strike. The wife got me a book on wood finishing for christmas, and I've been reading Nick Offerman's "Good Clean Fun" which is big into keeping clean and organized so inspiration most definitely struck. I was going to put the shelves up in the basement once we had things set up, but using them as bookshelves in the garage seems like a much better place for them.

Testing...

and confirmed. Yup, that'll work.

So instead of evacuating while the lacquer fumes evaporated like I probably should have, I put one over the drafting table's new spot. I liked it so much the other one got put up too. They still need a coat or two of poly that they never got since we were staging and getting ready to move when these first went up but I think that will work. I'm still not sure the table is going to stay, but having move shelves in the garage means more storage space for non-tools that were taking up valuable real estate.

Now all I need is a broken down recliner and a mini-fridge, and I'll never leave the garage. I'm half joking, but being forced to re-organized has made it a lot more comfortable in there. It's a good lesson to learn and again, I'm amazed at how things are still rounding into shape after more than a year in the house.

Lacquer in the front

But only with the windows open.

The second coat of crib paint was looking good enough for me, so I attached some cleats and got ready to bust out the lacquer. The cleats got an extra coat of paint as well, just to give them one more thing attaching them to the crib in the hopes they're strong enough to hold a desktop. I think they'll be fine.

ComEd had turned the power off. Thank goodness for battery tools.

The lacquer also turned out fine, once I got used to the fumes. It took hours for them to die down, making me slightly hesitant to add another coat, which I think it could use, but I guess there's not rush. It's going to be a while before I have time to get boards to finish, so I have to sit around staring at a half-finished project until I somehow find an extra hour in the day.

Shiny. Hopefully kid-damage-resistant as well.

Which is a shame, b/c resurfacing the crib has gone well enough that I'm tempted to try it on our ikea chair in the basement to punch it up a little, but have no idea when I'd ever have time to get that done. Just another idea to let simmer for a while.

Sharing my space

It's been an amazing experience to watch our house round itself into shape over the past 15 months. As we settle in storage areas filled up and spaces delineated themselves by purpose, or at least intended purpose. And now I find myself wondering how exactly it's come to this, b/c now I'm sharing my garage with not just my bike trainer, but a new treadmill as well, and maybe even the elliptical again. Woo boy.

That's a little more crowded than I usually like.

The funny thing is when I first floated the idea of a workspace by the wife, her only concern was what we would do in a few years when our oldest gets a car and doesn't have a covered space to park it. Ha ha ha ha! Somehow I don't think she's worried about that right now.

Step 1: get rid of the garbage.

What I'm worried about is keeping this treadmill as dust free as possible, and that's going to take some re-organizing and possibly some dust collection planning in the future. We killed our last treadmill but I'd like to keep this one around long enough to lose the severe case of dadbod I seem to have caught. For now, I'll hope that changing the space around a bit is enough to keep things workable. I have plenty of projects on my spring/summer list, and don't want to lose my space to do it!