Tale of the toolbox. in A small but passable life.

The idea was years in the planning. When I was living in Daughter’s attic we hatched a plan to clean up the back porch. The idea was to by a huge toolbox on casters and consolidate all the little tool boxes into one big toolbox. It never happened.

Fast forward to last week. When Daughter came to visit here she brought two of my toolboxes. The larger “carpenter” box and the smaller “mechanics” box. After I had sent her home with the duplicates out of the boxes and a few other tools I thought she could use in the van build I still had nearly full boxes.

Mom has some tools here, scattered around in various places, plus a tackle box with some odds and ends.

I’ve had the particular “big toolbox” picked out for years. Sears makes several Craftsman models. I was just interested in the “top box” and wasn’t really thinking about the bottom cabinet, for here, because of limited room. The idea was to put the box in the big drawer that slides under the porch. The top box usually runs about $100.

So, yesterday after Mom’s doctor appointment we headed back towards home and stopped at Ace Hardware so I could measure the top box for height.

And I stumbled into a bargain. The whole set, top and bottom, are usually $160. There was a November sale. Both boxes for $99.99! Well, hell yeah!

I grabbed a black set and the mats for the drawers for an additional $17. All together it came to $128.

I was so pleased with the karma of the thing that I didn’t even ask Mom. I just showed up at the car, where she was patiently waiting, with a store employee with a dolly carrying a huge box. We managed to barely shove it in the back seat.

We went to Village Inn next door to eat. Free pie Wednesday! I got French silk and Mom got apple, for later of course because we’d eaten way too much for lunch.

When we got home I put the new box together. Beautiful!

I went to the pool for a couple of hours.

When I got home Mom helped me cut the mats for the drawers. Help as in show me how to use her fancy fabric cutter, which did a fine job.

I emptied out the two tool boxes. I had thought that the new big box would simply swallow the tools. Nope.

All the power tools; the new circular saw, jig saw, sander, drill, and power stapler fit perfectly in the bottom compartment.

The carpenter tools all fit in the two big drawers in the top of the bottom box.

The mechanics tools all fit in the four drawers and under the lid of the top box. One drawer for pliers. One drawer for wrenches. One drawer for screwdrivers. And the top drawer for everything that was in the top tray of the small tool box.

The new tool box is FULL! And looking really pretty!

And of course the only place to put it is up against the wall of the trailer kind of behind the porch. Mom is going to make some kind of cover for it to keep the dust off and to maybe disguise it enough to keep it from being snatched. It may look like a covered barbeque. I’m really not worried about thieves. We never lock the doors, even when we leave the RV park.

So yeah, I need to sort out some more odds and ends and one junk drawer in the kitchen and ALL the tools will be in ONE PLACE!

Another item checked off the mental list of “Things that should be done around here.”

I feel so good about the progress I may go to the pool early today!