Bigger is Better

When we bought Our Humble O'Bode, I was thrilled to find that one of the previous owners had been a handyman who set up a work shop in the basement. He had saved an end table from the garbage to use as a bench, and hung his tools from a 4x4 piece of peg board he screwed to the wall.

The down side was that the work shop was shoehorned into a narrow space that used to be storage for the storm windows, between the lavatory and a finished room. I couldn't build anything bigger than a bird house in there.

But this season's going to be different. I talked My Darling B into letting me knock down a wall and make the work shop big enough to move around in. With this kind of room, I might be able to take on a more ambitious project than a bird house, too.

For a view of the work shop shortly after we moved in, take a look at this.

Lair Transplant

Behold, the contents of my basement lair, removed to its new location.

Each night this week, I would spend about an hour unloading books from one of these bookshelves, piling them on the floor, dragging the book case from the semi-finished room to this corner, and restacking the books on the shelves.

Actually, after the bookcase on the right, the next think I moved was the stereo, so I could listen to Etta James while I moved the rest of the books.

I dragged the desk out right in the middle of the move, just to break up the monotony, and to give me the idea to stand the two peewee bookshelves in front of it. It was a eureka moment.

By Thursday night, I was done.

It's a lot less crowded than it looks, although the sofa will have to go. I'm going to ask Tim to help me drag it out to the curb this morning and prop a "Free To A Good Home" sign on it in the hopes that it'll be gone by Sunday night and we won't have to drag it back downstairs.

The new corner lair does need a better set of lights, but that might have to wait a little while. For now, it's bright enough for the kind of goofing off I do.