Unemployment does have it’s advantages. I have had the opportunity to get lots of small to medium sized projects done; the big downside is trying to fund them. Most have been accomplished using materials I have laying around or can scrounge. Some of the projects are ones I started a long time ago and never finished and some are new things that come up.

Shop (garage) Air Cleaner
I went with the classic box fan and furnace filter. I made the rig out of 15/16″ plywood scrap from the bunk beds. It is suspended in the dead space above the garage door. I had bought the filters years ago for this project, but never had a fan until one of our house fans needed some repair and I appropriated it for the garage.

Tire Storage
We have snow tires for one of the cars, but storing 4 tires is a big space sucker. They used to be in the basement, but we cleaned it out in the spring and they moved to my workbench in the garage. I have seen wall/ceiling mount tire storage units but don’t have the bank account for one so I hacked together one of my own design. It hangs above the garage door and since I only need to get to it twice a year it is accessible with the door down and out of the way.

Food Storage
A while back we replaced the old 1950′s fridge in the basement with a chest freezer to save some money. We have also been ramping up our basement pantry area with home canned items, buying bulk dry goods and storing home grown garlic, onions, and potatoes. The Fridge was in the middle of the wall and there was limited shelves. When we replaced the fridge we just put the freezer in its place, This too made no sense, so I moved the freezer to the corner next to the washer/dryer and put some metal shelves that were emptied in the big basement clean out in its place. We instantly gained a bunch of shelving for bags of flour, canned goods, etc.

Workbench (basement)
As part of the big basement clean out we are moving my work area. A workbench came with the house on the larger side of the basement. I am planning on keeping a good sampling of tools in the basement to live, with most of them in the garage. I don’t need a 8′ long bench in the basement and I have a 4’8″x3′ maple top that I can use, so I put that in the storage area where the strange basement shower used to be.