Be careful what you wish for.. I might just do it for giggles !! Ha ! Ha !
Sounds good to me.
I think the most important "pass or fail" test, for a hobby workbench or a workshop or whatever, is whether or not you're getting any work done in that area. And you seem to be passing that test with flying colors, over the years ... so to me, that makes it worth seeing that work area.
But if you'd rather not show pics of your work area, in public, at this point: that's understandable, too. I'm currently re-doing the garage. And I would be definitely embarrassed to post pics of what that looks like! And my reason for not posting pics is: I'm NOT getting anything done, out there! It's a totally non-functional area, at present. Which gives me a great excuse for not posting pics.
However, so as not to be a total hypocrite: I might take some "before" shots, out there ... figuring that if/when that area ever DOES gets better, and is "functional enough to get some things done (even if it's butt-ugly while doing it)" then I would feel good about posting "before and after" pics of that area. Hoping maybe to encourage some of you other hobbyists to do likewise, over time.
That will likely be an "all summer long" project, since I'm sick of it being that way, year after year; and I want to deal with it. So, I'll take some "only worked on it for a couple of days (and barely made a dent in it)" photos, at this point: as "before's" for later.
Meanwhile, there's a much smaller project that I will try to post some pics of, over the next few days.
I'm partway through a workbench addition inside the house. Specifically, in my bedroom. It's a small enough bedroom that there is only one area where it could really go; and for reasons of the room's shape and size, every table or desk that I have tried in there, failed to work out, and was taken out of there. Having thought for a long time about the problem, it finally occurred to me that the problem was that one corner of the rectangular shape, on virtually every desktop or workbench or table, was in the way. But the rest of that flat working surface always worked out fine. So, having defined the problem better than before, a good solution was more apparent.
What I'm doing now (and will post pics of, before too long) is installing a custom-made working surface that's sort of a "rectangle with a corner cut off," if that makes sense. It's nothing fancy: just bare plywood, for now. (And it was "used plywood," at that!)
I've only had it officially installed for a few days now; but I had a multi-month (most of the winter, actually) period where I was sort of testing the shape, without actually having officially bolted it to a wall or anything. In other words, I cut the shape of workbench top I wanted, out of a chunk of plywood ... and then, just plopped it on top of a fold-up, portable table. And I left it there, where it would eventually go. It wasn't usable, as a workbench ... but it showed me that, yes, the cut-off corner was going to prevent injuries from walking into it, all the time, whenever I entered or left the room. Now that I know that part of things works fine, I'm making it the official working surface in that room. I've bolted it to the walls, with mostly-good supports under it. Pics will explain, so I'll save most of the rest of the explanation for when I get some pics up.
Some food for thought:
Part of the reason behind my doing what I'm doing, by giving myself a secondary, "emergency backup" sort of work area, is to be able to have the comfort of knowing I will always have at least a small, "usable enough for a while" work area available, for times when I want to de-clutter my larger, better-equipped, indoor working areas.
I find that I am hugely reluctant to go without ANY area to work ... even if getting anything done, in my main working area, is becoming harder and harder to accomplish. Soooo ... by knowing I have a small area where I can relax for an hour or two, here or there, with a project, the hope / plan is that I'll be less reluctant to take the big area "off-line" for a while, to get any clutter dealt with.
I'm hoping that having one small "okay, but not super serious" area to work in, and one "much better work area" as well, will result in fewer stalled projects. It may or may not work out that way, but right now the idea is that when I get bored with a long-term project, I can start on a less intense one, in my secondary work area. And leave my larger project right where it is, in the larger work area. Over the years I've noticed that if I take the time and make the effort to clear a larger project off of my upstairs work areas, and put all of the stuff related to it out of the way, to "take a break" with a smaller project ... the larger project will be in limbo, "forever". Usually, the short break away from the larger project does its job ... but then, I have to get the big project back out of "storage" ... and that's usually, for me, where that larger project falls onto the "whenever" pile. I'm hoping that if I can clean things up enough to have the larger shop areas neat enough that I won't mind if others see it, but without putting that larger project "away," that when I have had my relaxing little "change of scenery" and "change of projects" break, I can then just start where I left off, on bigger stuff.
That's the hope, anyway.
Other hoped-for benefits of having a small work area, where I can mostly just piddle around with a few chores, but can't get too serious about the projects I do there, would have to include memories of how I built and painted things, when I was a kid. (Nothing wrong with that, right!?) And also the idea that, whenever guests are over, the upstairs rooms in the house I live in double as "their space" ... which means I get kicked out of my upstairs shop areas until they leave, again. So, now, I'll have a work area when guests are around.
Anyway ... pics before too long! (Meanwhile, I'll shut up ... but hopefully, the words above might give some "food for thought"?)
