I have a room in my house that has a large door that opens overhead, a bare concrete floor and florescent lights.  There’s an attic access panel, a breaker box panel and even a side access door. It’s got 8 foot finished ceilings and a nice, open floor plan.

The real estate agent called it a garage, but it’s known as my shop. It’s where I keep the tools, build the projects and get away from it all at the bench. And, no, it hasn’t seen a car inside of it for the past eleven years…  But, there’s one day each year where the shop is neither a garage nor a shop – it becomes the base of operations for our annual Halloween pumpkin carving party.

In order to convert the shop into the Halloween wonderland, I have to move some stuff around.  Actually, a LOT of stuff around. I have to clean up the shop, push the table saw and other tools to the side of the room and pull the bench onto the driveway to serve as a – uhh – workbench for carving the gourds.

This is always a great opportunity to finally get under the bench to sweep. So, my oldest son and I pushed the heavy bench to the side of the shop to get better access to the bench… wow. Since I move the bench to do this once a year, I get a chance to see all of the projects I have worked on during the year.  For instance, in this year’s rat nest, I saw the refuse from the wine racks, the purple heart and maple cutting boards, the cradle, Carolina’s hope chest and lots of bits and pieces from the cabinet job.

Oh, and that’s where my screwdriver rolled off to!

Once that mess was cleaned up, the shop was relatively clean and ready to receive guests.  And, boy, did they come in droves!  Normally, we’ll invite a bunch of folks, but many have other obligations and can’t make it.  Not this year… we had more than 30 folks in attendance! While there was lots of catching up and laughing, the star of the night was the gourd carving.  Quite a bit of them were done, with some impressive entries…

While lots of our guests let us know how much fun our event was, there were more than a few who pulled me aside and asked, “So, where did all the tools go?”  Hey, they were hiding as my shop masqueraded as a pumpkin carving lab.

Now, to get the shop back into shape…