So I cooked up an awesome plan for how I was going to give Chris his birthday present. Let me just start out by saying…I had the best intentions.

I had a friend from church build him a much needed workbench for the garage. I figured it was about time he had a space in our house that was just ‘his’.

I schemed up this really great plan to have the garage all cleaned out and the workbench put in its place while Chris was out of town so I could shout SURPRISE as I threw open the garage door when he returned. 

My SURPRISE plans were ruined a bit when Chris came home early from one of his out of town business trips….

..and then ruined even more when I had to stay at work late the evening the carpenter was going to come over to take the measurements. I had to spill the beans and tell Chris what his present was, then ask him to re-arrange the garage a bit to make space for the guy who was coming over in, oh… 15 minutes. Well, no pain no gain, I guess. But I had that Chris had to do work for his own present.

I was so sad that my surprise plan never came to fruition, but Chris was still excited and very surprised that I thought of that as a gift. Yay me!

Less than a week later, the bench arrived… and we had to do some more rearranging in the garage.

I am completely embarrassed by the state of my garage.

Just a side note, we are preparing for a huge garage sale to benefit a missions trip to Mexico (more on that later), so that accounts for all of the ‘to-get-rid-of’ piles covering the floor.

Also in our garage? All of the unfinished furniture projects that I have going on…. like this guy! (ps. I am still open to suggestions on what to do with it)!

and yes, that is a Michael Jackson Thriller album in one of those boxes…

I know you were eye-balling it. Thank goodness we have an attic. We keep a lot of keepsake things and holiday decorations in large rubbermaid containers up there so they stay out of the way when we don’t need them.

Here is the new work-bench.

I specifically requested the shelf underneath for added storage.

I found some plastic storage bins at a thrift store that will fit perfectly on that middle shelf and hold all sorts of things like tape, paint brushes, sandpaper, and small power tools.

The bench is also free-standing (not build-in), so we can take it to our next home when the time comes.

He’s happy, I’m happy…and now our tools are happy!