New Wood Rack

Here's what has been absorbing any free time I've had for the last two weeks:


It's the long overdue, long planned, new shop wood rack - and it is finally done! Wahoo!

The posts are three 2x6s laminated together with glue and screws. The arms are 2x4s, set in mortises created by missing sections of the center post lamination:



I debated using 2x6s as arms, but decided I'd try the 2x4 arms first. If there are any problems, I can make 2x6 arms with a cut down tenon to fit the mortise and a supporting lower shoulder.

This is really the first phase of the "Total Shop Overhaul". For some time I've been wanting to change things in my shop, which is in one half of our two car garage. When I stand facing into the shop half, everything makes me happy. But when I face out of the shop half, I am looking at all sorts of things that just don't feel right: recycling bins, hot water heater, boiler, kitty litter, random storage, exercise area etc. In short, I've been wanting a 360° shop.

I thought about moving the shop out to the small shed in the yard, but it's unheated and has no windows and no real door. Then I thought about building a new, dedicated shop structure in the yard. This was more exciting, but I finally realized, with a lot of help from my wife, that it just wasn't going to happen this year. In the end, I decided to go with an idea that my brother Josh championed. I'm going to build a temporary (it will need to come out at some point) partition wall down the middle of the garage. This will solve the 360° shop issue, and also give us more storage (shelves on the non-shop side) for our teaching supplies/materials that are currently filling a rented storage unit (my wife and I are both teachers, and are moving to a new school and have way too much stuff that needs an accessible storage space - i.e. NOT the crawlspace).

Here's my tentative plan for the Total Shop Overhaul:

Phase 1: New Wood Rack - complete!
Phase 2: Remove Old Wood Rack to make room for the wall - pending.
Phase 3: Partition Wall w/ door - planning.
Phase 4: Window Installation - planning.
Phase 5: Rearrange Shop - dreaming.

I'd love to think that this will all be done soon, as the shop looks like a bomb went off and is almost unusable at the moment. It's like being in the middle of one of those sliding picture puzzles - move this, to move that, to move that, to get to that, to reach that. Frustrating! But the reality, especially with the new job, is that it is going to take a while.

Sigh.