I am an unabashed dumper of things. I stack and pile until there are leaning towers of paper, tools, and chotchkas all over the surfaces in my house. My workspace in the garage seems to be no exception. Problems arise when you stack crap in an area where you use fire though, so it was time to clean up my act. My other patrons who made sure I was set up in my studio when they found themselves laden with more tools and equipment than they needed, brought me two fantastic workbenches. They had been used, but in that great way where the use is visible, but it only encourages you to add to it. I was not afraid to use these suckers like I would have been with new, pristine surfaces. I took possession of the benches last fall and did the best I could to manage my space in an already crowded garage. I set things up in a way I thought would work and over the next year used the space for many projects. Then summer came around and it was all kiddos, all the time. The benches lay cluttered with the detritus of projects and the bits you tend to lay about when passing a flat surface with something in your hand you no longer want to be holding. I walked by it, overwhelmed and with very little free time to get it fixed up.
Then last week happened. Last week was an awesome celebration of all things family. My in-laws (really, my friends) came into town with kids in tow and we enjoyed all the great things we love about living near the beach, but don't take advantage of because, ew, traffic. At the end of their stay, the hubs had one extra day off which he determined to be garage clean up day. That marvelous man pulled out every last thing in the garage, tossed all of the useless junk, shop vac'd, swept, and all around spiffied up the place. Then he gave me the greatest gift: three hours of no-kid time to clean and reorganize my benches. Holy moly was that awesome.
My workspace is now divided into stations with the appropriate tools for each job in its place. I have a metals area, a glass cutting area, hot glass, warm glass, and a space for alt materials. For privacy purposes I'm not publicly posting pics of all my hard work, but if you'd like a peek, shoot me an email and I'll send you a photo.
