Workbench BEFORE
Workbench AFTER
Just a quick update/pat-on-my-back for making some forward progress today in the transformation of our outdoor storage closet into a fully functioning hobby workshop.
I got up first thing this AM and stained my workbench with Minwax Dark Walnut stain. Only took about an hour and it looks great. There’s something about unfinished wood that looks rinky-dink to me, so I’m happy with the results. Not sure yet if I’m going to varnish the top as it’s made of some kind of hard fiberboard. It soaked up stain like a sponge, so I’m not sure what varnish would do to it. It could end up being a hot mess.
I got the one steel bookcase stacked on the other and it works great. I did notice that it has some significant rusting on the bottom shelf, which is now the middle (easiest accessible) shelf. I don’t want to put books or magazines on there so I’m considering wire-brushing the rust off and spray-painting some Rustoleum over the spots. I don’t think I’ll do the whole shelf as I don’t need it to look good, I just need it to not ruin my books. Plus, I don’t have that much energy.
I toted all the stuff out of the room that isn’t hobby-related. 7 or 8 half-full cans of house paint, gardening tools, herbicides, insect poison…all moved to the garage. That cleared up the Kit Stash shelf to hold nothing but un-built kits. I still need to move some kits from the Nerd Cave to the Bunker, but I finished re-boxing all my sooty, water-damaged kits in plastic bins. I just need to print and apply the labels, which is something I’m trying to get done this week. Once that’s complete, I’ll post an AFTER pic.
On a related note, I found plastic shoe boxes at Wal-Mart for 97 cents (versus $1 at Dollar General). I didn’t notice when I bought 15 of them that they are slightly different in that they’re more rounded than the Dollar General ones. Not a big deal unless you’re OCD (yeah, you know me). Furthermore, the 3 cents per bin I saved (45 cents total) will never compensate me for the 30 minutes I had to wait to check-out because Wal-Mart only had 5 lanes open and the woman in front of me needed a price-check from the Fabric Dept. and THEN her freaking debit card kept being rejected. And you know Wal-Mart check-out minutes are on the wrong side of the “Time Flies When You’re Having Fun” spectrum. Five minutes in a Wal-Mart check-out lane seems like, I don’t know…3 months?
I’m starting to rethink painting the workshop white. Shelving covers up about 50% of the walls and the rest is going to be covered by posters, photos, and such, so I’m not sure I’d get much lighting benefit from a paint job. Plus, I’m lazy.
As far as the floor, I’m leaning more towards the vinyl stick-on tiles or having a flooring place come in and install linoleum. I like the epoxycoat stuff but it takes like 18 hours to dry which means I’d have to leave everything from the workshop on the back porch overnight, which I don’t want to do for various reasons (rain, dew, spiders, crackheads, etc.)
We’re swinging by Lowes tomorrow to pick up some materials for a Halloween decorating project for the front yard–No ladders involved. I’m going to check out the shop lights and if they have one that looks good, I’m probably going to get it and hang it up. I’m getting so close to cracking a model kit, I can almost smell the Squadron Green Putty.
That’s all for now. Thanks for stopping by, and as always…stay nerdy my friends.
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