It seems, no matter how much space you have, you end up filling it up and wanting more. The shop is no different.

The “uncluttering” solution is to (1) sell, give way, and throw out the stuff you don’t need and (2) use space more effectively. I did a little of the first and a lot of the second. My problem was I needed to use my vertical space better so I installed the industrial equivalent of a closet organizer – warehouse (or pallet) shelving.

My first challenge was to find shelving that I could afford. New stuff is nice, bright, clean and expensive. Craigslist yielded something that is old, dented, dingy, a little rusted, and affordable. A road trip in between “climate chaos” snow storms got them the last 90 miles to the farmhouse where they sat for another few weeks for the weather to cooperate. This weekend was the perfect.

It took a couple trial & error attempts before I came up with a process for installing the 10’ high up-rights and connecting the 10’ long spreaders. BARRETT did most of the heavy lifting. I would load two of the 50 lb spreaders on the pallet stacker’s forks and then lift them to 10 feet. I would then position a ladder at one end and bring in one of the up-rights. Once I locked the spreaders to the uprights with funky connectors and a 3lb sledge, I moved the ladder to the other end and repeated. Once all the bents were in place, I used BARRETT to position all of the lower spreaders then cut 2’x4’ cross braces and again used BARRETT to help deck the shelves with spare press board.

Currently, the shelves are holding some spare construction lumber, a pallet of pre-finished plywood for the home office cabinetry, and in a bit of chicken-vs-egg, the shelving hold the left over shelving.

for anyone who thinks my shop is all about cabinets and stairs and practical stuff. I just saw this video and REALLY want to build one of these. I’m sure it will amuse me to no end and I’m going to ROFL when visitors try to "make it work" …

You can find the instructions and details of how it works here.

It’s easy to get up at my usual 5:45AM in the summer when Little Miss Sunshine is a ball of fire at that time of day. But before DST kicks in and on those short days of winter, Mr. Gloomy Moon tries his best to insure my "get up and go" is more like a "ball up and hide" in the ol’ down comforter.

This year I ma going to try emulate Little Miss Sunshine with a "sunrise simulator". Me being me, I had to turn this into a DIY project. I started with and old light table from a print shop. These things were common place back when be for the all-digital desktop era. In my case, I had salvaged a small floor standing unit just under about 2′ square. It’s first use was as a pedestal for a piece of glass art. It was quite striking to have the art light from the bottom. Since moving the light table has collected dust and rust. So today I sanded it down and put it in the paint booth for a nice shiny white finish inside. I also took the opportunity to remove the fluorescent tubes and install 4 incandescent sockets. I needed to angle the light bulbs so I ended up using two outdoor flood light bases.

The sunrise simulator was purchased from sunraintime.com. I had to make a few modifications to the unit so it could be hard wired (it is designed to have a floor or table lamp plugged into it). I also drilled it to mount on the side of the light table. The unit has a three way switch – on / sunrise /  off.

(for the purposes of the picture,s I have removed the frosted glass top)

The finished unit is a second bedside stand and could still display a nice piece of glass art. It is programmed to start lightening up the room at 5:30 and take 45 minutes to reach full brightness. Currently there are four 75w bulbs. That may be a bit too much – sunglasses anyone ?

I finally got over my most recent paralysis and fear of tackling the kitchen cabinets. Sometimes a task seems so big and so fraught with potential disaster, that it is easy to "do something else" rather do the task. For the past month, I gave myself a "pass" and did not beat myself up too much as long as I did projects that needed doing and didn’t just goof off.

So, over the past two days, I did a lot of things …

• add music to the shop
• make space in the shop – lots of space
• setup the pocket screw jig
• rewire the table saw for 220v – she use to spool up now she barks to life
• rip bamboo to width – 2" top rails, 1-1/2" mid rails and mid stiles, 2-1/2" bottom rails
• chop box to length .. after measuring 2 or 3 or 4 times
• drill for pocket screws
• clamp and assemble
• take pictures and call it a day with pizza and sangria
• setup the router table for shaker panel doors
• rip and chop more rails and stiles
• use the panel cutter for the large 1/4" bamboo plywood
• install stile bit
• run a 2 or 3 or 4 tests
• route all of the stiles
• route all of the rails
• install rail bit
• run a 2 or 3 or 4 tests
• route all of the rails again
• test fit
• curse the rails being 3/4" too short
• rip and chop more rails
• route all of the new rails
• install stile
• run a 2 or 3 or 4 tests
• route all of the new rails again
• convert 4 clamps to 2 long clamps – need 9 foot clamps
• glue rails to stiles, insert panel, adjust
• repeat
• repeat
• clamp panels together along with end cabinet face frame
• clean up
• collapse with left over cold pizza and more sangria

Thankfully, I get to go back to work tomorrow and recover !

The shop has a new resident. His name is Barrett and he is very handy to have around. He can lift nearly two tons and can lift it very far over our heads – 20′ to be exact. He can also do a little side shift action which is handy when moving stuff around on the top shelves.

Barrett weighs about 4000 lbs so he’s not allowed anywhere near the kitchen.

The shop still needs some old pallet shelving but for light weight storage, I can build stuff out of traditional lumber.