No more power tools in the apartment!

I am happy to say that I will no longer be using my miter saw in my apartment. Why? Because I have a garage! YAY! (Insert applause here). I have been building my own furniture for years. It started when I graduated college. My uncle and I went searching around for a bed for my new apartment. All I saw were beds with mattresses and boxsprings, and I hate boxsprings. They're ugly.  I wanted a platform, and back then Ikea wasn't here yet. So, on a whim I asked my uncle how hard it would be to build one. He told me it's not as hard as you think, and actually much cheaper than buying one. That was all I needed to here. Cheaper than buying, so I went for it. I mean how hard could it could be? Make a box and put some legs on it. The rest is history. From there I became fully acuainted with Home Depot, and just started building all kinds of things. Skip 10 years, and most of my big pieces of furniture are TM.Originals. I always feel it has to be funny to see a 5ft woman, carrying an 8 ft piece of wood, and attempt to strategically manuever it into my Corolla.

Last weekend I really took some time to get some stuff done in the house. One of my projects was organizing my garage. Now, I am fortunate to have a 2 car garage. So, my car goes on one side and my tools and building materials on the the other.

Before

After

This took me about an afternoon. The main goal was to make sure everything was easily accessible and easy to find. As you know, I'm not one to be searching around for stuff for too long. I also wanted to make sure to keep the work surface clear so I had space to work and spread my projects out. The only things not out are my cans of paint. I put those in the garage closet.

You have no idea how excited I am to finally have my own workshop. For years living in apartments, I would always build in my living room. Yes, in my apartment living room. I have drilled, cut, glued, sanded, spray painted, and sawed all indoors. Inhaling sawdust is not pretty. Trust me, I have learned the lesson from personal experience. It sounds crazy I know. I will admit that using a Miter Saw in an apartment is not the best idea, but I have to work with what I got. Now, I know what your thinking....the noise. I will say that I try to be a considerate neighbor. I do not do any loud work too early in the morning or late at night. To this day no one has ever complained. Well at least not to me. My coworkers joke that they're too scared. You hear a noise like that your not sure what it is.I could be a crazy person cutting up bodies. HA! No bodies, just 2x4s. Now, I will not never do a project in the living room again, because that would be a lie. My bookshelf is currently laying on its side upstairs right now getting a face lift as a write this. However, I will definitely keep it to a minimum. 

I'll be doing my first building project next week. I'll have to come back and tell you how it went. Should be exciting. The only thing missing now is a table saw. Then we would really be in business. Until then, it's on to the next project!