Projects-The Most Important Part of the House (By G)

When we were considering buying our second house, I only had one requirement: I wanted a 3 car garage. Luckily, the house that we bought met that requirement. In our first home, we had a fair amount of storage. The attic was large enough for most anything we wanted to store. Even though the house we are in now is bigger, storage was an issue. Besides the storage, I also wanted a workbench and a place for all of my tools.

Last April my parents came up to visit and my dad and I planned out what we wanted to do and began work. The interesting thing is that my dad can build anything. He is a problem-solver and can find creative solutions to most anything. He has taught himself all of these skills and most people are impressed at his ability to get projects done. He is also a perfectionist, so the completed projects are just about perfect. For whatever reason, I possess none of these skills. I even had trouble using the tape measure. I guess that's why I went to law school instead of learning a trade. I have the tools I need to do most anything, but no practical skill.

After a little planning, we took a trip down to the Home Depot to gather supplies. About an hour or so later, we were ready to go. We spent the next 3 and a half days working from morning until late evening building shelves in the small bay of my garage. We built what amounted to 9 cabinets, including a workbench. By the time my parents left, we had everything built and the doors cut and routed. I was left with instructions to paint everything so that when they came to visit again, we could hang the doors and finish the project.


We decided to match the paint color with the existing color of the garage. I filled nail holes, sanded, primed, and painted. This took a lot longer than I had anticipated and I spent a number of evenings in the garage working on it. I was able to get everything done about a week before my parents came back to visit in July. Then we hung the doors and completed the project. The only thing left to do is to get some handles. I now have more than enough storage in the garage and was able to put away a lot of things we had on the garage floor. I now feel at home in the garage. Thanks, dad.