The Wood Room Birthday project

I'm sure this will only be of interest to my children and sister, who are probably the only people who've been in our wood room--aka storage room, messy room, utility room, just-stay-outta-there-it's-nasty room.

The reason I was cleaning the pantry--see gross mouse story-- (and root cellar) was to make room for the usable stuff that was being cleaned out of the wood room. It was Project Birthday Surprise for Dad. He was in Dallas for the two days before his birthday.

On day one I cleared out those three rooms, emptying the woodroom into the family room and reorganizing the pantry and root cellar. That evening additional forces joined in. Keith jr. rewired the light socket and hung two shop lights. David and I went through the work benches in the barn, filled a box with scrap metal, filled three trash bags, and brought the rest into the playroom. Nicole kept up with the children so I could keep working. They left and I painted until 12:30.

On day two I skipped spinning and sorted all of the family room mess and put the usable stuff in the newly cleaned rooms and moved the rest up to the playroom. At noon, Shane, Bryce, and Owen carted four big boxes and seven bags into the van for a Goodwill run (which I later ran). They also carried out eight trash bags, a pile of boxes for burning, and a plethera of old paint cans. Then they opened the cans and left them to dry out on the old work benches. I moved all of the tools to the woodroom and finally we swept, vacuumed, and destroyed evidence of our mission.

Dad got home at 10:00 and commented about Dana taking his parking spot in the barn (planned, of course, to keep him from seeing the changes to his work area). While he was at work on Thursday we sorted through boxes of nails, screws, nuts, and bolts and put them in storage compartments. I bought a rolling tool chest and work bench and Owen sorted tape measures hammers, screw drivers, plyers, and wrenches into appropriate drawers. Finally, I tackled the job of installing an outlet--stripping wiring, twisting whites and blacks and grounds, and capping and taping--and tada! it was done.

Here is what Dad saw when he was led downstairs for the surprise.

Happy 45th Keith!