This was a long standing dream. I’ve gone through most of my adult life with little to no organization of my tools. You can have shelves, drawers, cupboards, and bins, but if there’s no rhyme or reason you won’t get far. In my garage, I have woodworking tools, mechanic tools, garden tools along with paint and other liquids. It’s was ending up as a mishmash of tools. My new workbench (see previous post) was always covered with junk, the shelves had logic, the paint was in 4 different areas and car maintenance stuff was just thrown on the shelf.
I started with building some new shelves that were twice as deep as they were before which has helped keep liquid and general household stuff decluttered. I’ll post about the construction of the shelves in another post.
Next was the workbench, and probably the most important to me. I took all the tools I use on a regular basis and laid them out. With the help of my wife, we drew on a large piece of cardboard the size of my backboard for the workbench and on that cardboard, we organized the tools, moved them, just all around making them fit, grouped and logical.
With the tools there, I punched holes with a nail to mark where my screws would go (on the cardboard) and once done for all laid out tools, I took my cardboard cutout, and put it on my workbench backboard and started putting screws for 95% of the tools that I have. I just used 1 1/2″ to 2″ screws but needed to use some small finishing nails for some smaller items. Then I just ripped off the cardboard with the screws coming right through and staying in the backboard. Now, after placing all my tools in place, I traced each one with a magic marker so that anyone using my tools (not something for me, more for my son, possible future child, and wife) can put the tools back where they are supposed to go.
An each screwdriver holder was also made using a piece of scrap wood 1×2 and I drilled 3/8″ holes evenly spaced, for each screwdriver, then mounted the whole unit to the backboard.
A few other hooks and screws were put in to the frame for my caulking guns, level, and framing square.
A quick and simple way to keep tools accessible and organized. Now comes the hard part, keeping it organized. 🙂
Feel free to comment or post your own ideas that you’ve used to keep things organized in your work space.