Treasure Chest

Keeping everything organized so you can find what you need when you need it is one of the pillars of time management. I don't know what the other pillars are since I just made that up but doesn't it sound logical? In my quest to stay organized, I've had various bins, shelves, and systems but each one has failed to hold enough and a few of them collapsed under the stress I've put on them. I started to look for more serious systems and found those mechanics tool chests to be about right for my needs. Then I checked on quality and price and had to take a step back. I couldn't afford Snap-On systems that resell at thousands of dollars:

Snap-on rolling cart

because I still needed one of the top compartments, too, for a full combination set. They also come in blue and black but couldn't get excited about them. I considered Ironton

Ironton tool chest

thinking I might be able to use a coupon and get a better price so this was my new hope. I checked out my local Craigslist but they were all either beat up or over a thousand dollars and then I found someone who was selling his Grizzly mechanics cabinet:

Now we were talking business! He had outgrown his ten year old cabinet so was selling at half price, still a good deal even with wear and tear on it. I got myself over to his shop where his wife and I got it into my Jeep. Even with all of the drawers out it was heavy but we managed to get it down into the basement and into place:

Grizzly rolling cabinet base with tool chest on top

Isn't it beautiful? I vacuumed it out and cleaned with a wood furniture cleaner and found few bumps and bruises. Even though it's only 26" wide it is tall but it took quite a while for me to figure out if everything was going to fit:

Grizzly cabinet stocked with my tools and supplies

Of course, not everything was going to get into this baby so a few executive decisions were made and I called it a day. Wow, oh wow: this was going to work! It's about 18 inches deep so takes up less space than the wire rack bins I had in that space and it actually looks more spacious now. I'm pretty happy with my purchase: fits in designated space, stores almost all supplies, more than functional it actually looks good.

Sometimes it's about the sewing machines and sometimes it's all about the items that keep this business going. Next up with be a post about those sewing machines I bought from Erin and what I'm doing with them (it's all good so far!). In the meantime, keep sewing and keep organized.