After planning enough projects I want to do around the house, and watching enough DIY television, I now realize that it's insane for me not to own an miter saw. Thinking about specs, it seems like a no-brainer that I should get a compound miter saw (in other words, the motor and blade shouldn't just create angled cuts, but should also create bevels by rotating around the front/back axis). But given my two big constraints -- cost and space (we have a tiny basement we use for all our storage) -- I'm not so sure that moving up to a sliding compound miter saw for the extra $400+ that it'd add to the price is all that necessary. I'd love to hear other people's opinions, on whether my assumptions make sense, on brands that would be good for a non-pro weekend warrior like myself, and on anything else that seems appropriate!
The Washington Post had a good article two weeks ago that offered up an interesting perspective on the relationship between homeowners and the contractors they hire. From the woman who hired a friend (and regretted it nearly instantly) to the man who held a barbeque for his contractor and crew, the article boiled down to three succinct points: do your homework (check documents and references), use the word-of-mouth network as fully as possible, and find someone who fits your own style and expectations.
Having my first bona fide basement, I've been pretty excited to get around to creating a little workbench area, a place I can use to do little projects and organize my tools. Of course, that's easier said than done, and with my new job and with the bunches of visitors we've had over the past month or so, I never got around to making that happen. This past weekend, though, I guess Shannon finally got tired of hearing my whining; she dropped by Home Depot and got a length of pegboard (as well as a nice kit of pegboard hooks and tool holders), and that's really all it took to get me moving on the project.
Our basement walls are brick and mortar, so all I really had to do was mount two four-foot one-by-twos horizontally to hold the pegboard up, and I was good to go. Then, I just emptied my toolbox onto the workbench and figured out what was worth hanging -- and I gotta say that I'm pretty darned pleased with the result!
As in all things organizational, the key is less in how the board looks today as it is how it'll look in a few weeks' time; we'll see if I'm able to keep it neat, since my biggest frustration has been being able to find the tools I want to use at any given point in time. Likewise, getting everything up off my workbench is awesome, but I'll be happier still when I'm able to resist cluttering that surface up again (or, in what might be my favorite saying from my mother-in-law, "crapping it up with shit")!
