I love cleaning. There, I said it. Many people have told me that I went into the wrong business. But having a woodworking shop provides many opportunities for this secret passion.

I'm not one of those guys who tidies up every day. The way I tend to work, by the end of the day, I'm beat and the last thing I want to do is spend more time in the shop. So my cleaning usually gets put off until the job at hand is done. By that time, the place is a wreck and the cleanup is not optional.

It’s never a matter of sweeping up a bit of sawdust and putting a few tools away. The shop is hip deep in shavings. Every tool I own is somewhere other than where it belongs. The clamps are piled on the floor, usually tangled with air hoses and extension cords.

This is heaven for a guy who gets almost as much satisfaction out of cleaning up a mess as he gets out of making one in the first place. It's a task worthy of a master. At least a full day's work and one or two trips to the dump. The goal is a completely clean shop, everything polished and waxed down, where it’s supposed to be and ready for the next tsunami.

D.D.