Workbench!! (Almost.)

Woo hoo!!

Awww boy.  Yeah!

Insert celebratory jumping around here, even with mildly stuffy face still!

For the first time in my life, I finally have some workbench tables.

Oh my gosh, I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am at this moment.  It probably doesn't seem like much or all that big of a deal but lemme tell you....it is to me.  Like big time.  BIG time.  !!!!!  And I, me, lil' ol' me, I built 'em!  Yeah!

Almost though?, you're wondering.  Yeah.  Oop's.  Clearly I was getting sick the day I picked up my lumber for the workbench as I am one 2 'by short.  One leg short.  Dammit!  Heh, ah well, we all make mistakes, right?!

Any other day and I would have run out for one more stick o' lumber but by the time I got everything done, it was 4 pm plus it's all of oh, three degrees outside.  Noooo thank you.

What else was cool?  I finally got to use my new miter saw for the first time too.  Yeah, only five months later, ahem.  I was a wee nervous but after perusing the manual a tad first so I wouldn't chop my hand off, it swiftly felt old hat.

Um, I guess I coulda read the side there where it uh, blatantly says "laser."

Either I forgot or didn't know, but (yes thank you manual) it has a laser line.  Suh-weeet!  Neat!

Even neater?  Straight, fast, easy, true, clean cuts.  Whoa.  Isn't it nice having the correct tool for a job?!  Jeez louise it is.  And I did not slice, dice or chop off anything on my body either.  Ducky, right?

So ok.  As I mentioned before, I opted to reuse a platform that we had built for Hailey so she could see out of windows at a previous residence.

It was difficult taking off the short legs in preparation but pausing a moment, I sent a mental thank you note to puppy heaven to her, letting her know I'll think of her every time I use this helpful table.  Sometimes I seriously cannot believe she is not here.

Sigh.

Ok.  All I had to do here was add new legs to it.  Before I made my cuts, I did some research about ideal workbench heights which as it turns out, averages around 36", or kitchen counter height.  So, I went to our lovely lovely kitchen, stood at the counter a spell and decided to go for 38".

And bingo!  Right tool, quick work, a smidge of planning, and bam, bingo!  My first ever workbench table.  I stood back in awe for a few moments, staring at it.

5' x 2' x 38" tall table.  Oooooh yeah.

Then I used it right away to build the second table.  Yes.  It was awesome.  Awesome.  And the.perfect.height.  I was quite smirky with pride in myself.

I built the second smaller table exactly like the first.  Somewhere along the way recently the other day or so I came across an image of a workbench set up where they had their miter saw on the table.  Eh, big deal, right?  What they did though was lower the area where the saw was so that the other tables around it were flush with the saw deck.  Smart, yeah?!  Gee I thought so, so I decided to make the second table shorter.

Finn, ever the critic checking out my handiwork.

3.5" lower to be exact.

The only pile of sawdust in the room?  Under Finn.  Why do they do that?  Now he's coated in it.

There's still plenty of useable room on this 4' wide table as a work surface even if I decide to leave the saw there.  But!  Now I have options in table height too depending on the type of project I'm working on.  Uh huh, how 'bout that cleverness?

How.  How how how did I get this to work out exactly?! With un-level floor and everything?!  How?!

I'll pick up one more 2'x4' sheet of plywood to make a shelf underneath the smaller table and use the remaining plywood cut off piece from the sheet I bought for our headboard to make the longer 5' shelf below.

Somehow, and this is weird because 5+4=9 and the wall is nine feet long, but it worked out that there's a gap between the tables where the sole wall outlet is.  Serendipitous for me, perfect for power cords to drop on down through.

So yeah, workbenches people!  Sure, they're pretty basic and hardly fancy but OoooOOoooh yeah!!

I had to share one more photo showing the height difference.  Seriously, how on earth, with a ridiculously un-level floor and wonky carpentry skills did I ever on this green earth get the height difference exact.  No idea.  But I'll take it.  Finn looks just as shocked as I feel.

Workbenches!!

As soon as I was done I realized, oh, uh, um, Mike never said no or yes or anything about all this, huh, I hope he's ok with it.  I'm sure he will be though.  I mean, he's gotta be, look at them!  We have workbenches!  And I'm sure I'll catch him using them too.

Looking forward to filling this area out and in to make it a fully functional, practical whole workbench tool mind blowing area.  Oh.  SO pleased.  :)  I'm already imagining all the cool projects about the house that will have their beginnings on these tables.

Next up though?  Headboard!  Stay tuned as it's going to be fan-freakin'-tabulous.

In the mean time?  Going back downstairs to admire those first-ever workbenches again.

Jump to the next workbench post here!