My new workshop relocation: Day ONE – Where is everything going to go!?

Tackling my new workshop relocation, day one: making a plan and figuring out where my entire workshop is going to get relocated. So, as most of you already know I am officially a single gal and I am currently in the process of totally rethinking my entire home. It started with my new guest bedroom and library converted from my old office by moving my “office” to my entry way. That left my previous guest bedroom totally empty so, with the commencing of operation BLISSFULLY HAPPY I am returning to the plan of putting a rental suite in my basement which means my workshop needed to move out of there…

So, where was my new workshop going to go? In my old guest bedroom of course! I’ve got a couple of awesome things going for me with this room and the big one is the ENORMOUS 3 foot by 11 foot closet. Currently in the basement I have managed to fit almost ALL of my tools on some floor to ceiling shelves in a closet not even 1/4 of that size so I knew I could squeeze in here…

The second thing I already love about this room is maybe the most obvious one – its on my main floor 🙂 So I was keeping ALL of my tools in the basement. All. Of. Them. And even if some of them were on the main floor do you know where the tool was that I needed? It was ALWAYS down stairs. I once had a project going in my master bedroom and I did a minimum of eleven trips back and forth from my second floor to my basement to get whatever tool I forgot the first time because I am an idiot. If I never have to go up and down the stairs to my basement again it will be way too soon especially after what I did last month…

I don’t have any idea how many trips it actually took I just know that by the end of it I was quite done with my life in general. With the help of my best friend Rachie we hauled every last thing out of there. I ALMOST cut a hole in the wall in the back of my guest bedroom closet because that would literally have come out at the top of my basement staircase but that would have been one more thing to fix later so I talked myself out of it. SO then we had to carry all of my tools either outside AROUND the house or inside AROUND the house to get them back to my new workshop. I made a map so you guys can see just how many steps we would have saved had I just cut that damned hole which I marked with a big red arrow.

SEEE?! I should have cut the hole! About half of everything had to go around outside. (I was NOT going to carry my heavier-then-heck-totally-covered-in-saw-dust miter saw through my dining room, my kitchen and then through my living room.) All the wood went around too but I finally got smart at that point and just opened the closest window, took off the screen and pushed the wood right on in, that saved SO many steps. Thank goodness I am so frugal that I used up the majority of my scrap wood! Just feast your eyes on my poor dining room table totally covered in stuff lol

So, why did it take me a couple of months to start in on this project besides the obvious procrastination of hauling my workshop thirty five miles up hill on foot? Well now we’re getting in to the real downsides of my having my workshop upstairs in a very-pretty-totally-finished bedroom that I really don’t want to destroy. I had some projects I needed to get done first. I had closet doors to build etc and just the idea of even cutting a piece of wood with my miter saw in that pretty room makes me wince really really hard. Fortunately MOST of my major build projects (that I can think of right now anyway) are already complete and I can always move my miter saw to another location like OUTSIDE.

Of course I plan on covering and protecting the floors and now, with the house basically done, my workshop is going to be a lot more focused on refinishing furniture. So it will be a lot of painting, staining, lower key stuff then building closet doors out of 2x4s.

Its just a big pile of craziness right now so the next step is getting things organized. Will I miss my workshop in the basement? Yes and no… OF COURSE I’ll miss a place I could get totally dirty and not worry about wrecking anything! But, on the other hand, if I finish my basement rental suite that will be income coming in that I could REALLY use. So I am gladly giving up my workshop for that possibility and really, its hard to put a price on never having to go up and down those damn stairs again!

So now “Day One” is complete – I have technically found a new home and relocated my entire workshop. On to “Day Two” which is: going through everything, getting organized and figuring out how this room can best work for me.