Another fine mess

“Shop clutter expands to fill the available shop space.” You may have recognized that as a paraphrasing of Parkinson’s Law, but it applies oh-so-well for the woodshop. Well, mine, anyway.

My previous shop was a two-car garage offering about 440 sq. ft. My current shop is nearly 1,200 sq. ft. I’ve never enjoyed so much room, and no matter how much I procrastinate cleaning or let clutter accumulate, workspace is never an issue.

But when I do shop photography, I tend to move stuff around to get the best shots. I drag, lean, cram and otherwise deposit stuff on any available wall space or empty corner that’s currently unused. With no woodturning projects for a couple months, the corners of my lathe room are particularly bad.

But I’m planning to add a new piece of equipment to my shop in the next few weeks, and it needs a place to live. Of course, accumulated clutter has expanded to fill every free spot available. I still have plenty of room to work and my shop looks great — as long as you don’t look in those corners.

I could probably take care of all of this in an hour or two (not including distractions), plus a bit more time to find spots for it all. Some will go back into my storage room. Some, like the broken printer under my lathe and numerous scraps of flex hose too short to use, can be tossed. Boxes can be broken down, scrap barrels thinned out, and things that belong on shelves can go right back there.

I tend to put this kind of cleaning off, but the fact is that I simply cannot bring that new machine home until I create a permanent home for it. If anything is an incentive to clean up the mess, that’s certainly it.