Custom Work Bench

I hate the mess of my garage. If there was just one more room for photos, I would show you what I was working with: a piece of plywood propped on two saw horses, with loads of supplies taking up every last inch of space. I was beginning to wonder why I didn't want to go into the garage, what I hoped would be my haven after a crazy day of singing the ABC's with my 3 year old and giving chemo treatments to my 6 year old with leukemia.

Then it dawned on me: I'm not organized!!! I start to get the shakes if things are not in their place. So, I started to dream up my perfect work bench, one place where I can store my main necessities.

I don't work well without plans. Of course it dawned on me too late to contact Ana herself to help me. But when I thought about it, I realized that it was basically a box. Just start with a box. So I checked out a few of Ana's plans that started out as a box and went from there. By the way, I couldn't have gotten through 1% of this project without Ana and the inspiration and encouragement from her site. Love you!! Anyway, I knew I wanted drawers on one side and shelves on the other. As I went along I decided to add a few contained shelves on the side of the bench to store the wood glue, wax, and other smaller items. On the other side of the bench (because I HAVE to make use of all space), I saved the cans from some crushed tomatoes I had used to make a sauce, and used some hose clamps to keep them in place. I keep all my brushes in these babies. I made the shelves adjustable and decided that looking at the back of the drawers was undesirable, so I purchased a $5 curtain and stapled it in place to hang behind the shelves hiding the drawers -- so girly! Gotta have that little feminine flavor to my work bench (as if the color didn't do it enough).

The drawers were the biggest hassle because I made a very bad builder mistake. I rushed them and I don't even think I took out a square once to make them. Bad builder. Bad, bad, BAD BUILDER!! I was tired and was in such a hurry to finish this so I could get organized and the shakes would stop. So, in the end, the drawers don't work perfectly and I'm constantly reminded of my shortcut every time I open them. (And every time my husband reminds me as he helped me with the drawer slides and cursed the whole time.) Each drawer is trimmed out differently as I was just using the different wood and choices I had laying around. The knobs were a great flea market find at 25 cents a pop.

In the end, I love her. I'm organized, or as organized as I can be right now. Besides my power tools, I have everything at my fingertips. And if the garage becomes a mess again, I know it won't be because my stuff doesn't have a home. And with this paint color, I'll be able to find her no problem. :) Oh yea, that is a beer on top. I deserved it.