We’ve tried growing things outdoors in the past, but we’re just not very good at consistently watering them. To address this, I wanted to use self-watering planters but store-bought self-watering planters are expensive and not only that, they are usually small table-top sized and/or have tiny water reservoirs.

I wanted a planter that I could put a thirsty plant out in the all-day summer and only have to water once every week or two. Oh and I wanted it to be relatively cheap.

We’re looking to grow some vegetables and herbs this year and I had a stack of materials that I had reclaimed from previous projects that I had kicking around “just in case I use it one day” (it must be the woodworker’s creed). It just happened that I had nearly the perfect pieces lying around to make an indoor grow station.

My first DIY truck bed divider did it’s job: it was easy to make, it hasn’t fallen apart and I can use it to reliably secure stuff in the bed to keep from sliding around.

So what’s not to like? It’s heavy, bulky and a huge pain to get in and out of the bed. Oh and sometimes my tonneau cover freezes over and if it happens to be in the bed at the time? Too bad, sucks to be me.

I’ve been building things for a bit now, let’s see if I can’t make something a bit nicer.

Now that I’ve had a drill press for a little while and finally starting to make regular use of it, it’s probably a good idea to build a drill press table for it. In the long term, I knew that I would likely build something so that it would best suit my needs but for the short term? I waffled between buying something basic, sucking it up and buying something nice or bumping the priority up on building my own. While I did end up buying a drill press table, I quickly decided that this wasn’t the way…

Now that I have a more permanent setup, I can finally put energy into tackling quirks and annoyances of my space. I’ve been chipping away at some small upgrades here and there to try and make the space more organized, cleaner, safer or just generally nicer.

Awhile back I bought a floor-standing drill-press which I mounted on a universal tool base. While the universal base was functional, I didn’t think it was a great fit for my top-heavy drill press as it always ungainly to move around.

I recently added a floor-standing bandsaw to my workshop which gave me a second chance at getting these larger tools on mobile bases.

After dismantling my plywood cart to make an indoor plywood storage case, I no longer have a way to collate and organize offcuts and scraps. This has led to a lot of material being leaned against any available surface and subsequently sliding, falling over, blocking something I want to get to or … all of the above. I needed to get an offcut cart, fast!

The biggest downside of working with plywood is, well, working with plywood. Or rather, everything up to that point: getting it, handling it, breaking it down and storing it. By sheer luck, our garage has a nice straight-line transition into the house where we have a long wall which would make for a great spot to store plywood. Only if I can keep it pretty…

In the second post on this series, I want to reflect back on some things, big and small that have made a notable quality of life improvements in my work space.

We have a gas-powered 2-stage blower but last year, I got a cordless 1-stage snowblower for ‘free’. I made a specific point to use this as my primary snowblower as much as possible so see if it was up to the task (spoiler: it mostly was).

This rubber-paddle based unit comes up short in one area and I’m hoping that swapping out the auger will correct that shortcoming.