Compromise

 

When I last left off talking about this project, I noticed that it was blocking a good chunk of my attic access above it. Due to the perspective of the camera, it doesn't look like it but the cabinet depth is 28 inches and the attic opening is maybe around 36 inches and it maybe 18 inches above the cabinet. The geometry adds up to a really tight squeeze despite how it looks in this picture. I did test out the strength of the cabinet and it did hold my body weight meaning it could be used as a step in accessing the attic but it just wasn't convenient. 

To move it, the ideal solution, would require shuffling all my tools around. Not shown but underneath the cabinet in the above picture is a small table that is a catch all for things. It is quite handy since it is right next to the door entering into our house, but it also means that it is usually cluttered with lots of things since it is so close to the door entering our house. One of those proverbial double edges swords. So to move the cabinet and reconfigure my power tools, I would have to move the small table as well.

After sleeping on it a few nights while working the book sale charity event, I decided to go ahead and move it over to the other side of the space. Since I had already put it up once, I knew what must be done and in maybe forty minutes, the deed was done and there is now clear access to my attic should I need to go up there. Before starting on installing all my hand tools in my new cabinet, I needed to clear some space on my workbench and hang up those tools that don't need to go in the cabinet mostly due to their size and infrequent use. I didn't want to go back to peg board for the many reasons previously mentioned. So after thinking about it some, I decided to mount a sheet of plywood up on the wall allowing me to customize it like pegboard but with holders that will never fall off along with the tool it is holding.

A trip to the store and a morning worth of work and I had most of my long-ish hand tools hung up and looking nice. I also am going to create a charging station for all my batteries but am waiting on some parts to get the accomplished and will feature that in a future post. I drug my small table over to its new home and you can see all the junk on top that I need to find homes for and moved my two larger power tools, a drill and a bandsaw, into their new homes closer to the door. If I need to access the attic, they are both on wheels and can be easily moved out of the way. All in all, I'm pretty happy with the compromise I've made. Already I have decided that I need to replace the table with a wooden one for laying my plans on during builds along with some shelves and perhaps a light on the bottom side of the tool cabinet. But that it a project for another day, another year.