The shape of things to come

So, I'm still tweaking the latest in what has been a long, slow series of shop setups. But it's getting there. It seems that I keep having to remind myself that open space is a good thing.

Anyway, four main things have changed, or are in the process of changing.

First, I dismantled the lab table that has been set up in various ways since I opened up my first shop in Medford. Originally, the table was purchased by the now defunct leglab at MIT, and came to me eventually via craigslist. I thought that this was really cool, and was hoping that some of that hard working smart kid karma would come with the table. It didn't. Or at least, it hasn't manifested itself yet. Since the table was such a reliable crap-catcher, and I'm trying to minimize the piles, I decided that the table simply wasn't doing what I needed. I unbolted the legs, and stored the whole thing in the lumber area.

Second, I moved the huge wall cabinet away from the corner.

With the space by the window cleared out, I had room to move my big workbench over to the biggest source of natural light. I need to do something about artificial light, so I can see better when the sun goes down, but the improvement overall in the space was HUGE.

When the big pile of plywood isn't there, the entire floor space is pretty much wide open. Irony of ironies, I cleared the space in order to make room for a huge cutting/assembly table that I'm planning to build soon. The inspiration and rough design comes from a guy named Steve Jones, over on the Festool Owner's Group message boards. And since I'm coming to terms with the fact that some of my incoming work is going to involve plywood, I think it's a great idea. So, while the big cart covered in plywood is taking up all of my newly reclaimed space, the cutting/assembly table is going to be about the same size, if a few inches shorter. It'll also have a lot of storage space underneath, for a few things that still haven't managed to find reliable homes... like the case for my Festool Drill, a few other Festool things, some bins for screws and the like, and I'm thinking I'll find a way to incorporate a vacuum press in there somewhere.

I still have a lot of crap to clear out. But I feel like I'm making slow, steady progress. (Fingers crossed.)