The Basement

This is a protective storage case for our window screens. They've been leaned against a wall for the last year or so and I'm grateful and a little surprised they weren't damaged. I still need to make a door that will finish this little project off

Shelves for paint cans. Turns out I could have made another shelf for big cans

I added a shelf into this shelving unit and I plan to add yet another

With things in reasonable shape upstairs I've taken a deep breath and started work on the basement. In some respects it only makes sense, since it IS a part of the house, but it's a part we've mostly just brought to the most basic point of completion and then ignored. Consequently it's become a bit of a catch-all with no real organization.

My goal now is to relocate the table saw and chop saw down there and establish the basics of a workshop. I'm doing my best to avoid the temptation to just push stuff aside and move them in without any reorganization, so I've been spending time creating shelving for stuff and trying to sort out trash and putting like things together. I've made a bunch of progress. I'd also like to hook up the sink we previously had in the first floor bathroom as a garden/utility sink near the basement door.

Where I find I often get stumped is with wood storage. I try to move scrap wood on to the wooodstove burn pile as readily as I can, but longer stuff that I could use for future projects is harder to manage. How much should I keep? What sizes are best to hold on to? I'm way better at this then I used to be, but I still struggle with it. This evening Nancy had the idea of making hanging racks; I like this idea because it'll limit the amount I can store which will help with accumulation.

Anyway, the goal is to get myself set up with tools and such in the basement and then I'll recommence with woodworking projects.

Stairs: Check

Finished up the stairs to the second floor. The dimensions on stairs need to be exact and things came in just right, so I feel happy with the effort. The human body senses the height of stairs and can stumble when there are even very small variations, so things had to be right on.

We made a point of keeping the rise & run to dimensions that would allow a semi-elegant feel to going up and down the stairs and I'd say they feel great; just what we were hoping for. The trade off for designing the stair like this is that they cover more real estate within the house, but I think it was a good direction to go in. They feel easy to go up and down.

Joe introduced me to impact drivers, which are basically screw guns with a very powerful ratcheting hammer built in that makes them able to drive screws and bolts in effortlessly. My old screw gun batteries had died in the mean time, so today I went out and purchased a combo kit of impact driver and screw gun. Handy and top notch.