The Purge – Workshop Reorganization is in Order!

Telling a frugal gal like me to purge something will absolutely not work until it finally drives me crazy. There’s simply a limit to how many times I can move something, without using it, without it also paying rent, until I will finally give it away or throw away a perfectly-good-whatever-it-is. I finally got there with my workshop this fall and I was ruthless in my purge. It has a lot to do with the fact that we did so much this summer it didn’t always get “put away” like it was supposed to. And it also has to do with Lodi and I combining households.

(Apparently this is beginning the theme of BRUTALLY HONEST photos of our house… stay tuned for so much more lol)

What was a perfectly fine workshop for my tools and crap was no longer accommodating for all of OUR tools and crap. Not only did I need to do some serious purging it was also time for me to completely redesign the closet.

We need better shelves.

We do not need a door.

It was time to get this space working better for us… Besides that, there is literally sheetrock in the corner from over a year ago when we did Lodi’s room and those beautiful oak boards came out of the guest bedroom something like two years ago… None of it belongs here!

So that was first (obviously) but then it was time to get serious.

As Stephen King once said about the things we write, “We must kill our darlings.” There is one specific thing in this room that has been taking up nearly half the closet the entire time this workshop has existed.

That is my Mom’s very first desk when she was around 18…

Is it broken entirely beyond repair? Not in this girl’s mind of course but no one needs a desk in my family (including my mom) and she has given me all rights to purge it.

If it were solid oak etc. you guys know full well I would have refinished it / saved it long ago… But it is not.

Goodbye old desk – fifty years of use by at least three of my family members just needs to be enough for me to part with you.

That was hard but the extra space we now have in the closet is getting me over it pretty quickly.

The stools I made years ago go as well because: we don’t use them.

I pulled the door out of the closet next which is an old barn door from here on the farm. I’m thinking I’m going to be using it again here in this closet but, for now, I have a lot more to purge.

(Instead of tracking all that I’m purging through the house I’m just making a pile out back right by the gate… I’m sure Lodi will be thrilled with me LOL.)

I am reminded of why these shelves look like this and, though I did an OK job doing what I could here in the closet when I first tackled this, the truth is, I was in a bit of a rush. Instead of building storage to fit this closet I literally just brought these upstairs from the basement and stuck them in here.

Out with the shelves! (for now)

In this moment I just stared at the pile of paint cans in the corner. I know none of them are “bad” or need to be thrown SO, I am ignoring them at the moment… Everything in there that isn’t paint though is coming the heck out.

Now I have a nearly empty closet and workshop I can barely walk in LMAO.

THERE’S NO GOING BACK NOW!

It is time to tackle the bins. The fact that they’re all not falling a part is kind of a miracle because every single one of them has just gotten more full and more heavy over the years (and since Lodi moved in).

I’m sticking with the bin idea but they will all be on the FLOOR and there will be less of them.

I am absolutely OVER hauling a heavy bin down and generally dropping it on my head…

Some of these bins I rarely touch but am not ditching entirely such as: our Sheetrock (Rocky) bin so I’m stashing it in one of the deep corners. Accessible but not in the way. Same with our electrical bin (Sparky) that just got extra heavy from extra line I had leftover adding electrical in our garage addition.

I have two VERY nice and VERY heavy duty bins in here that were actually a “gift” entirely filled with a return of all of my electrical and plumbing crap I had borrowed to a friend… He also gifted me all of his extra electrical and plumbing crap… as a thank you?

Who needs fifteen 3″ PVC elbows?!

(…Honestly most of this really is probably my own leftovers from the house renovation… three bathrooms and two kitchens is a lot of plumbing…)

I kept the “goods” like full sink traps etc. and dumped them in my plumbing (Mario) bin to also be stashed. I did the same with the electrical I deemed worthy of keeping leaving me with the two very nice (and now empty!) heavy duty gray bins and already two very large trash bags full of stuff to sell, donate or toss.

Notice I haven’t added anything but bins yet to the closet? I plan on building the bench over them so I don’t inadvertently build a bench with supports that won’t accommodate the bins beneath it.

My paint bin I don’t even have to look in – I already know there is nothing there to purge – so it just gets stashed too.

The “project” bin is a whole other story as everything in it is either stuff for future projects, extras from past projects or totally miscellaneous crap.

I do manage to empty it completely either by purge or finding better homes (in other places of the house) for everything that was in it. My crafty bin was full of such things as glue gun, stencils etc. so that one stays and accepts a few things from the Project bin.

At this point I am lining up everything that is debatable on the old work bench: I either need to make these things a REAL priority and do something with them or it needs to go NOW.

We had four extra lamps and seven broken shades… don’t ask me how or why… the lamps are mostly broken as well…

Devoting an entire bin to one hand sander and a handful of sand paper was just silly…. So that was at least easy. The sander needs to go with the power tools and the sand paper gets put in a plastic baggie.

The broken power tools bin gets emptied and the tools go into one of the heavy duty bins that I got from the friend.

At some point I want all of our power tools out and easy to grab but, for now, this is a much better solution.

My hardware bin and my fasteners bin I just stick in the closet for now because I’ve been loathing them. I think anyone who does renovating or wood working of any kind has a pile of screws, fasteners, hinges, handles, knobs, pulls, nails, brackets etc. that they may never use and also spent a fortune on… so doing that purge is gonna be painful.

I will get them better organized at some point…

In fact I totally expect to get all of our boxes of screws and fasteners out of a bin and in easy reach on a shelf.

But first, I find a stopping point because, I actually managed to purge everything I possibly can out of this room. Initially I expected all of our camping gear to have to leave this space for more room but, for now, I had plenty of room to stash it under the work bench. (Though it will be going somewhere else at some point.)

Though I did purge A LOT I am amazed at how much more room I found in this space.

It is amazing how poor organization can really take up a ton of room!

Most of the bins were actually taking up a lot more space than they were worth!

Ok so here’s my plan: The old barn door we were using here I’m taking down in size and returning it to the closet as a work bench in line with the big shelf already in the right side of the closet.

I was going to put it in using the old shelves as supports but I decided to spoil us and splurge a little.

I purchased plenty of heavy duty shelf brackets from Amazon instead so there will be nothing under the bench to get in the way of the bins we do end up keeping.

I’m going to be adding several shelves too – one entirely devoted to all of our paints and stains!

Getting all of our paint out of that corner, labeling it and knowing exactly what we have at a glance, is starting to feel like the actual reason I did all of this!

I also plan on painting out the whole closet too, wish me luck!