the square peg

[shephd]

Why the square peg? Because nothing fits, like a square peg in a round hole.

I've always been interested in tools, cars, motorcycles, woodworking, etc. For a while, I worked in the trades. Life is more stable these days, but I've lived in South Carolina, Iowa, North Carolina and Virginia over the past 10 years. Housing choices/availability effected shop choices. While I wasn't sure I was doing the right thing, I packed and moved my tools with me.

I've never gotten everything unpacked and set up in those 10+ years, and of course I've added to it as I've went--a good deal on something, or buying a duplicate because I can't find what I need to get a job done.

I know I have too much **** for the space I have. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about everything, but I'm going to do something to make the spaces I have to work with work better for me.

Time is of course always an issue. Glad I've have good job, even if it takes 50+ hours a week. We have a 20 month old son and 5 and 17 year old girls. So progress will be slow. I'm sure lots of folks on here work through worse challenges than I have, but allergies and eczema have also been a problem for me over the years and have limited my energy and productivity.

Next week, I've got about 4.5 days at home, and some of it will be used to work on the square peg and the house and yard. I wish I'd had more time to plan next week, but the time off only became available to me today. If I had more time, I'd like to try modeling things in Sketchup.

The square peg consists of a 12x16 building and two single car garages. Here are some exterior and interior pictures. My plan is to try to use this thread to document changes and to help motivate me to keep making a little forward progress.

Next week, the goal will be to move stuff outside into keep, sell, and trash piles. Put the keep stuff back, rearranging it so storage is denser, and build in some useful work areas. Not sure where the sale stuff will go. Trash will get hauled to the dump. Don't know how far I'll get, but I'm hopeful.

Things I hope to do next week:

*replace the man door in the garage
*put things up higher
*put things on wheels
*label drawers so I can find things easier
*create a workbench that I can keep clean and available for work.
*like items with like
*throw away as much as I can
*power wash/degrease two roll cabs I have so I can use them again

I'd like to ask for ideas, but at this point I don't have pictures that help explain it better, so I think I just need to see what I can do next week to make my own progress

Thanks,
Tom

I know these next two pics aren't great. I put up the kitchen cabinets that you see in an earlier effort to organize. I have some metal shelving and drawer units that I think I can use instead, and I think that will make my storage more dense and help me get things up higher. That's an old kitchen metal base cabinet.

Even though it doesn't fit, my Delta Unisaw with a 52" fence is in here. Along with a 17" drill press, 14" bandsaw, 6" jointer, 42" HF box, and a 28" Craftsman box.

Yes, I have too many motorcycles. I probably need to ditch a bike or two. There's a 01 sportster, a 78 SR500, a Kz400 and a Kz440, and three xs650s in there. An old Delta wood/metal 14" bandsaw with the gearbox on the back sitting on the cast iron base. A South Bend 9" lathe. A disassembled 472 Cadillac engine. A parts washer. A bunch of office desk drawer pedestals. A big old industrial drafting table from AMF here in Richmond.

Last pics are of the basement garage. We have a half basement, dirt floor, with less than 6.5 ceilings. The lawn mowers and other yard items are in here, but there is a bunch of stuff from the previous owners that I need to throw away. Not sure how to better use this space. Ideas? odors from here from gas move to the living space upstairs.

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading.

 

[Daniel Dudley]

I think you have a shot at real garage happiness there...

 

[Thruxton]

I totally agree, and I think you are on the right track about maybe paring down the MC collection. And a very nice tool collection! Also, I think you are right about the basement garage. I think I would use that for material storage, but nothing with gasoline in it. At some point you could maybe put some gravel over the dirt floor, and if you dug it out a bit maybe you could pour some concrete over the gravel at some future point. It wouldn't have to be mil spec with that 6.5 ceiling, just enough to keep things clean and drier. Keep up the pics as you work!

 

[3pedal]

If you could get a hard surface floor of some type in the basement garage, that might make a great spot for the toop shop. You have some nice tools - unisaw, joiners and such. That could leave the other spaces for the gas and such. As a basement space, it ought to stay a bit warmer in the winter than the others.

 

[bobemmerich]

I'd say with the 2 outbuildings, put the gas stuff in them. Move all your wood working tools to the "basement garage", only after you get some kind of floor in there (preferably concrete). I think getting rid of stuff is the first step. you're on the right track. Keep us posted on updates.

 

[shephd]

Thanks for the comments, guys.

I appreciate the comments about trying to pave the floor in the basement, but I doubt that will happen. Re: putting the woodworking stuff in the basement: it is divided into two room, but think 1920s construction. And the furnace is down there.

I went out for a couple hours last night after the family went to bed. Just putzing around trying to put things into tool boxes. I picked up this bucket with some chain in it at the "to good to toss" section at the dump. Under the chain there were about 50 allen wrenches, standard and metric. Mostly Bondhus ball-end and Craftsman. Cleaned them up to put them away. Not a huge score, but free USA made tools are ok by me.

bucket:

contents:

It's been raining hard here all morning. Quite a bit of this short-term stuff is dependent on me being able to move stuff outside. Not a lot of progress today, but at least I'm still moving forward.

t

 

[shephd]

Slow progress over the weekend. Lots of rain here. Did get a few things picked up and moved around. Tossed a second curbie of **** into the trash and another into the recylcling. Made some square feet on the enclosed fron porch as well as both small out buildings. Felt pretty good about what I got done today. I took a few pictures but its too late for me to post tonite.

Tomorrow is back to work.

 

[3pedal]

Nice find on the Allens. I bet a bucket full of chains isn't light.

 

[shephd]

Nice find on the Allens. I bet a bucket full of chains isn't light.

It's got a little weight. yeah, who doesn't like free tools. I kinda don't understand getting rid of tools like that, but kudos to the people who left them in the free section instead of throwing them away. IIRC, that was the same day I got a brand new fan from the free section, too.

Anyway, on to the update. I had to work Tuesday. I have a 35 minute commute. Took a few minutes to be able to stand up straight when I got to work; over did my back on Monday moving an old table saw. So first order of business today was to get a hand truck to help me move stuff. $30 at HF and I was set up.

I almost emptied the building in the first picture. That building has a wood floor with sleepers on top of the slab, and I didn't think it was worth my back to take out the Unisaw, a shelving unit, the HF roll cab, the drill press, the band saw or the jointer

 

[shephd]

I've thrown a few things away, but I'm finding that I better at throwing stuff away as I put stuff back. I can say to myself, that isn't important enough or I don't need it then. on the way to putting it. I've got a pile of stuff that I probably will toss, and a much bigger pile of keep stuff.

I resorted to graph paper and cut outs for a little planning. There is a door in the middle at the bottom, and my idea is to make the right side of the building dense with storage and an area for a workbench. In the middle are the roll cabs and a metal shelving unit, and along the bottom wall two shelving units. At the top, the metal kitchen base cab as a workbench.

However, I've since come to the conclusion that the kitchen cabinet is probably something that I need to get rid of. Playing with the paper model, I kept going starting with my "best" stuff. That kitchen cabinet isn't my best--its cool, but it needs to be repainted/restored. Not sure it is worth it at this point, so I will probably sell it. Found some other stuff like that, too. I think those wall cabinets are like that and tomorrow when I'm fresh I think I'm taking 'em out.

I've had a little time to think about it, and I think I might be better served by putting the DP, BS and jointer in the middle, and tool boxes along the walls. I have to create some bench space, too...

Pic of some of the space I made today:

keep stuff outside:

toss pile:

 

[shephd]

Happy New Year, GJ! After 1958 days, I'm restarting my effort to have an organized shop, and this thread. The shop needs improving to let me be more productive when I do have a few minutes to work on something.

This thread is going to be my journal. I want to try to do something in the shop everyday even if it is a little thing, so I will try to do something on this thread daily, too. Better to have a goal than not, and I'm not going to be too bent out of shape when I miss a day in either place.

We'll see how it goes; I've blown some time catching on the photobucket problem and then downloading a **** ton of photos from my phone. I tried to add an avatar but I'm pretty sure the file is still too large.

Right now, I'm trying to get the following done:
*clean off the top of the three Lista cabinets
*make room to setup my steel workbench
*get my mechanics tools organized with sockets in order/stored so I can use them more readily


I've got a fair amount of things I need to try to sell and make some room. I'm going to try to let go of some projects that have hung around too long. At the same time, I have some big projects on the house that need doing this year: new roof, new kitchen, redo two bathrooms, and maybe new windows. Like a lot of you, I have minimal time. Family, including two young kids, needing to workout pretty much daily (health reasons), regular keeping the household going tasks, 45-50 hours per week at work, about 10 hours of commuting every week, wah wah wah.

So yeah, I better get after it.

It cool in the shop today, its about 15 outside here.
View media item 78829
The previously mentioned Lista top. Hate to post it but doing so should be good motivation to work on it.
View media item 78831
Have a great day and keep warm!

 

[Redraptor]

Happy New Year! Certainly sounds like you have a lot on your plate.

 

[shephd]

Thanks for stopping in, Red. Feels like there is plenty but things could be worse.

Got a few things done. Swam 1.25 miles for a workout and have spent the rest of the day working around the house. I got some space cleared and some things put away. I found the hardware for my workbench (the top is the gray straightedge on the right of the frame. Got a few things listed on CL.

View media item 78854

 

[shephd]

Yesterday was back to work and back to school for the kids. I only managed about 5 minutes in the shop but emptied a box, put some things away, and tossed a few others.