Adolphia retreats?

There are rumors in basement land that Adolphia is retreating. (This is my family's affectionate name for me. See backstory here.) 

I used to work on a large picnic table. I think that you will agree that it now owes me nothing...

Due to terribly exciting circumstances which will be revealed in a later post, I needed to move two chests of drawers out of my sewing room. Since it seemed that mutiny would probably follow any further space incursions into the male part of the basement, I decided to retire the picnic table (saving the legs for shibori - dyers are weird..) and to use the chests of drawers as the base for a new work surface.

While Sonny Jim began the Adolphia nickname, he is very happy to bring home (to the house he no longer lives in) all sorts of junk treasures he scavenges. While other boys dream of being firemen, he wanted to be a garbage collector, because of all the great stuff he would get first dibs on. Thus we acquired a fully (non) functioning air hockey table top which someone else had very sensibly thrown out. He was sure he could turn it into a vacuum table for screen printing. Turned out he couldn't, but the huge table top remained propped against the wall in the basement until I had a stroke of genius, and decided it would make a great work surface on top of the chests of drawers. Enter dear husband and his power tools, to convert massive useless item into a sleek functional item.

 He sneakily reduced the width by about half, hence the rumors that Adolphia has decamped somewhat. However, I do not see this as a retreat, just a regrouping. Since I tend to expand to cover all available workspace, I actually work much more efficiently in a smaller space. My dye table is a 4 foot collapsable table from Costco. I could have gone with the 6 foot one, but it would just have accumulated junk. Same with the space above. I expect this to function better than the larger picnic table. An old padded plastic tablecloth, some duct tape, and we are in business! DH was able to keep the rounded corner of the original, so I will be able to keep my skin where it belongs, instead of losing it to sharp corners. Brilliant!

A brief pan around the work area offers further proof that dyers are weird. None of these food items is for eating. Rice and oat resists, juice bottles for dyes...

Another bonus of the rearrangements is that I can now justify getting rid of a ridiculous storage system I was seduced into buying because of the bright colors. It used to sit under the picnic table. I thought it would be a wonderful organizing tool, but it is the biggest piece of junk out. One of the drawers broke during assembly. The drawers are also so shallow that they are virtually useless. 

Things that look custom made often don't really fit the advertised purpose. Things that look like junk can turn out to be the perfect solution. Lesson learned. 

Meanwhile I am popping with excitement, like a 3 year old before Christmas. The space I have created in my sewing room will be filled soon! Soon!!