Clean slate
As you know, Ive made several shop improvements over the last year that have increased my efficiency and productivity. Theyve also accomplished something I hadnt expected. I built a garage…
As you know, Ive made several shop improvements over the last year that have increased my efficiency and productivity. Theyve also accomplished something I hadnt expected.
I built a garage shed right about this time last year and moved everything not related to woodworking (yard gear, bicycles, etc.) out of the shop to increase my working space. I then redid my shop lighting many months ago, and wish I had done it years earlier. Its brighter, with no shadows, and the daylight-rated fluorescents make for perfect photography. Then, after contemplating it for years, I painted the ugliest garage floor in the world, which brightened the shop even more. Further, the painted floor makes the shop seem larger still. Finally, I enclosed almost every open cluttered shelf with face frames and doors, created a permanent home for my compressor (including a retracting hose reel), and replaced a sloppy, haphazard system of hardware and small-parts storage with a custom made wall unit that is as handsome as it is well-organized.
All of this makes work in my shop seem like play I know where everything is, its all easy to get to and use, tasks flow smoothly and, frankly, its made me a better woodworker. None of my tools or machinery has changed, but the shop itself is a totally different place.
I never planned to turn my shop into a showplace, but thats what its unexpectedly become and that has prompted me to do something else: become a cleaner woodworker. Im better now at returning tools were they belong while I work, breaking a bad habit Ive had for decades. Before, I never bothered with an end-of-the-day cleanup, but now I do. Maybe not a thorough get-out-the-leaf-blower cleaning, but I sweep up and put stuff away now. And that increases my efficiency even more.
In short, I have one good-looking shop now, and even though hardly anyone ever sees it, a sense of pride makes me want to keep it that way.
My shop has always been enjoyable to be in what shop isnt? and Ive always been proud of what I make in it.
Now Im proud of the shop itself.
Till next time,
A.J.
A.J. Hamler is the former editor of Woodshop News and Woodcraft Magazine. He's currently a freelance woodworking writer/editor, which is another way of stating self-employed. When he's not writing or in the shop, he enjoys science fiction, gourmet cooking and Civil War reenacting, but not at the same time.
