The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Homemade work bench

Flipping the box overEven though I've got some last mulching and transplanting to slip into the early winter, we've turned a lot of our attention inside for the colder months.  One of the projects I hope to tackle is turning Mark's old bedroom into a chicken waterer construction room and general work space, and the first thing it needed was a big work bench.

Mark's usually the carpenter in the family, but he was nice enough not to mind me Drilling on a legspreading my craftsman wings.  As usual, the goal was to build something with as little storebought materials as possible.  After a bit of poking around, I came up with a used kitchen counter (from Mark's mom --- thanks, Rose Nell!), some used 4X4s (from my mom --- thanks, Mom!), and some slightly used 2X4s that we'd taken out of another project.  The only really storebought component was a heaping handful of screws, worth perhaps four dollars.

Homemade work benchI built a box the shape of the counter out of the 2X4s, attached the 4X4s in each corner as legs, and screwed the counter on top.  Instant work bench!  Next, I plan to add a shelf underneath and a bunch more shelves on the walls to get our tools organized and off the ground.

It's hard to believe that I didn't even know what a cordless drill was when we embarked on this adventure four years ago.  Mark has been a very patient teacher, and has barely cringed when I broke his favorite drill bit, sometimes offering a gentle "Are you sure you want to do it that way?", but generally letting me make my own mistakes.  Thanks, honey!



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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