In Santa’s workshop

My father always had a workshop, and I always felt drawn to it. It wasn’t very sophisticated — my dad didn’t make furniture or anything — but he used his one large power tool (a Sears radial arm saw) to make simple improvements to our home and garden. On one occasion, he built a couple of simple coaster go-karts that proved extremely popular with myself, my siblings and with all of the neighborhood kids. I may not have learned a lot of woodworking techniques from my father, but I did learn the simple joy of using one’s hands to make and repair things. Thus, I always knew that one day I’d have a shop of my own.

Well before I had my first shop, I managed to learn some skills from, of all places, school. Back then our schools had a variety of shop classes (do schools still offer those?), and I took advantage. While in Junior High I took wood shop, metal shop, drafting and horticulture. In high school, I took auto shop. All proved instructive. Roughly 50 years later, I still have a small sheet metal toolbox I made in metal shop. As for wood shop, although I got acquainted with some tools my father never used, my main takeaway from that class was that I wasn’t a very good woodworker. Perhaps my subconscious took that as a challenge because, once I got to the point in my life when I could do something about it, I found myself accumulating tools, building out a shop and developing my woodworking skills.

The process actually began when my wife and I got our first apartment, which had a small deck and an attached outdoor storage closet. Although most of that closet was filled with things we’d been given but didn’t need at that point in our lives, there remained a bit of space where I could stash a small folding work table and some basic tools. On that deck, inspired by my new father-in-law — a passionate woodworker with a substantial shop of his own (in another state, alas) — I built my first real useful project: a small pine shelving unit custom-sized for our stereo and our LP collection. Although relatively simple, that bit of furniture took a fair amount of time to build since I was working with basic tools and learning as I went along.

It wasn’t until my wife and I bought a townhouse in Fremont — with a surprisingly large garage — that I was able to buy a table saw and set up my first real shop. Today, our Redwood City garage is smaller than what we had in Fremont, and serves primarily to house our two cars. But I’ve fitted a workbench into a small 6-foot alcove, and mounted my larger tools on wheels. While the cars don’t leave me room to use the larger tools, it doesn’t take much effort to move the cars onto the driveway and transform the entire roughly 400-square-foot space into a roomy, comfortable shop.

I’ve built a couple pieces of furniture that we use today, including the end tables on either side of our bed, a small bookcase that stands beneath our wall-mounted television for our many DVDs, and a table designed to facilitate the construction of large Lego projects (another hobby of mine). And now, hinged wooden boxes that replace the pages in selected hardback books. Placed on a shelf among real books, these serve as hidden storage places that provides security by virtue of being somewhere a thief would most likely overlook. All of my projects took time — especially because I am still learning and work slowly — but the end result has been worth it.

My garage shop is not only a nice retreat for a couple of hours on a weekend day, it is a place where I can continue learning and honing my skills. And this year, having made Christmas gifts with my own hands and tools, I had a ball in Santa’s workshop.

Greg Wilson is the creator of Walking Redwood City, a blog inspired by his walks throughout Redwood City and adjacent communities. He can be reached at greg@walkingRedwoodCity.com. Follow Greg on Twitter @walkingRWC.