We bought a house on July 2nd. It's a modest little 1930s craftsman at the end of a quiet street in Bellevue, KY. We chose Bellevue because it's a relaxing neighborhood with a lot of great commercial space on Fairfield Avenue that we often frequent (well, at least we did pre-COVID). It's within easy walking distance of Downtown, too, and the real estate in Bellevue was cheaper than in Cincinnati. It has the benefit of being centrally located without being too in the middle of everything at the same time. Much like Crane, we can retreat from everything when we want to. It's also just a genuinely neighborhood-y neighborhood; people seem to look out for each other here.

Before we move in, though, we want to do a little work on the house. It's easier to do projects when there isn't furniture and whatnot in the way. Because we're locked into a lease at Crane until the end of November, we have ample time to get a few things finished before moving all of our stuff.

One thing I've always wanted, and something I looked for when we were looking to buy a house, was a space where I could build a workbench, preferably in an unfinished basement where I wouldn't be afraid to get dirty while I worked. My father's own series of workbenches primarily inspired this desire to have a personal work area. Having a raw space to work in is a tremendous asset to a home and one I've missed while renting over the last decade. Though I've always had toolboxes, I usually ended up going to my parents' house to work on projects when I needed to.

The good news is the house we purchased has the perfect room for a workshop. In the basement, there's a room directly under the porch that the previous owners used for storing old paint cans, screens, storm windows, and other items I didn't want or need. On the breaker box, it's listed as the "tool room." There was an old bench with a single set of cabinets already in there, but it wasn't up to my standards. The shelves in the tool room were flimsy and unsightly. The room wasn't being used to its full potential.

I had a greater vision for it—this old tool room would become my new workshop.

Now, I didn't need a wraparound bench through the whole room, so I settled on the workbench taking up only half the room. Floor-to-ceiling shelves would take up the remainder of the space. I had an idea to buy a series of heavy-duty plastic bins for storage, and the shelves would be built to their dimensions. This would allow for clean, organized storage later on.

After describing what I wanted to do to my father—someone who has built many things over the last 30 years, including workbenches and shelves—he came up with a blueprint that drilled down into the specifics of the dimensions and engineering. This was an invaluable piece of the puzzle, as mathematics isn't my strongest subject. Truth be told, I don't think my own slow-as-molasses planning efforts would've resulted in anything near the high quality of what he came up with in mere days.

I demolished everything in the room one Friday night and hauled it away. Wedged behind the series of flimsy shelves was an old ONE WAY street sign that was badly bruised and caked in grit. I also found a pair of old work glasses that looked to be from the 1980s or early 90s, judging by the style. The old orange vice affixed to the previous workbench was removed with plans to incorporate it into the new bench design. I kept these three artifacts from the old workshop as a nod to the room's history; though I was stripping it of its valueless contents, I felt compelled to recognize its physical history nonetheless.

After the demo, the room became a blank slate with a single window and a hanging LED light. Over the course of three Saturdays, my father and I erected shelves, built a bench, and wired the room with fresh electricity. The ONE WAY sign, still caked in the grit it bore when I found it, now hangs proudly on the wall instead of hidden in the corner. The old glasses sit in the natural light of the glass block windowsill instead of in darkness beneath the workbench. The vice isn't attached to the bench yet, but it hangs on its edge as it did once before.

I couldn't be happier with how this space turned out. Walking into this space and flipping on the lights is so satisfying. In the morning, sunlight streams through the warped glass block onto the bench, in the afternoon, it reflects off the white house immediately outside of it. I've worked on Refined at the bench for multiple days now. I've cranked my music to obnoxious levels simply because no one can hear it underground. It's my little safe space and bunker that I'm safe in whenever I want to remove myself from society.

Below are four before and after photos to illustrate how dramatic of a change this room underwent.