This countertop might be as old as my rental home, 1967. Certainly generations of jackleg shade tree mechanics spilled oil on it and scuffed it up.

I previously used the counter to store my tool boxes, and general storage like my inherited family picture collection. General debris and clutter covered it making it unusable as a work space even if it were not so very dark.

Ever since the entire house and garage was elevated four feet for flood protection in 1995 the overhead lights have been too far overhead to shine much light in the garage.

Like the now distant windows. I deployed clamp lights with floodlight LED bulbs to finally light up the dark joint and want at least one more if not two more. Light! I must have light!

So I was eager to plate with wood the filthy particle board top surface using the almost equally ancient but high quality plywood cut-offs and stain-varnish I inherited from my dad in 2021.

So I relocated the family photo albums to shelving across the garage, going through each box to edit out any dupes, out-of-focus, unknown faces.

This compacted the needed storage, and family members get dupe pics for a nostalgic memory jolt from the back times. We were so young and pretty.

Cleared the rest of the clutter off the counter by donating some stuff and further cluttering the rest of the garage with the junk too precious to part with. Temporarily.

I cut the countertop boards out of 5-ply, quality leftover plywood from some furniture project of my father’s. Likewise I wanted to use up his antideluvian Minwax stain sealer so I ignored directions and larded it on thick with one of the old man’s brushes.

Ditched the brush instead of fussing with cleaning it with more toxic mineral spirits, to go with the toxic old (2001!) Minwax, as daddy would not have done, no matter how old the brush.

The green Hitachi rotary electric saw and new blade I also inherited, along with many hand and power tools, screws and nails and staples and brads, sandpaper, steel wool, router, jigsaw, razor sharp chisel set, varnish, paint, Kilz!, Shopvac, Workmate table… And more.

So my goal was to keep all my tools together to the right side of the work table, tool boxes on top, other tools stored in a wood desk and wood cabinet under the countertop.

This would leave me about 6ft of clean, well lighted work bench with all my tools at hand and power strips within reach.

I haven’t yet transferred all the tools out of my heavy steel surplus US government desk yet but when I do the steel desk must go

I hope some strong young people respond to my Craigslist Free Item ad and come take this desk away soon. It is right in the way of my coming grand building project. When I decide what it will be.

This was my mother and dad’s heavy old oak dining room table, expandable with four heavy leaves to seat about a dozen counting little kids on stools squeezed in.

Many’s the time, chow piled high and everyone talking at once, some drinking too much, some too loud and too competitive at games.

Bigger kids with an aunt, maybe a smoker, out on the patio on folding chairs, drinks and plates and an ash tray on a folding card table. Dog passing by hopefully side eyeing the kids’ plates.

I toted the oak table leaves up into the house yesterday, further hammering my arthritic left hip (right one is fake but somehow it hurts too).

The old family table itself will need to be toted up my totally killer back steps as well. The last big obstacle in clearing the garage, assuming I can ditch the 16-ton bulletproof government desk after moving the tools out of it.

The cost I assigned to this project is a rough estimate of the value of: 2 sheets sandpaper, 48 self-tapping drywall screws, and electricity to run a power sander for 25 minutes. Everything else I inherited or already had, like the clamp lamps.

Unless noted, all text and images by todgermanica.com.