Needle-nose pliers, anyone?

One Christmas, many years ago, I bought for Mr. Dub a set of tools. They were supposed to be his, but whenever I couldn't find my own screwdriver or hammer or pliers I raided his new tool set.

(In my defense, "my" tools - not to mention any of "my" other things - were and still are used by all the other members of my family who are not always conscientious about putting "my" things back where they belong. I put the word "my" in quotation marks because even though some things are definitely and inarguably mine, people say things to me like "Where is the label maker?")

The hard plastic case of Mr. Dub's tool set has always been too difficult to get into. It just wasn't ever an ideal set-up and then it broke. So getting in and out of his tool kit has been a problem, which of course makes putting the tools away correctly even less likely to happen. Something needed to be done but I didn't know what and I guess I thought we would just go on forever with things the way they were - tools scattered throughout the house and garage and nobody ever really able to lay their hands on what they needed without forming a search party.

I helped my neighbor have a garage sale a couple weeks ago. She had an old tool chest that once belonged to her late husband squirreled away in the depths of her garage and it was filled to the brim with all sorts of tools, junk, bits and pieces, and miscellany. I sold the contents of the tool chest to a guy whose wife, it must be said, looked none too pleased and then I bought the tool chest myself.

I haven't ever imagined myself owning a tool chest. It doesn't seem like something I would do. Sort of like buying old, beat-up stuff in other people's garage sales isn't something I would do.

But I brought it home, cleaned it up, lined the drawers with some cool, industrial-looking and quite grippy drawer liner, and organized Mr. Dub's tools into it. I'm hoping the grippy-ness of the liner will keep everything in place as the drawers are opened and closed. If it all starts sliding around in the drawers I'm going to be a little bit unhappy about it.

For now I love how it looks and I really hope it will be a more workable and permanent solution to storing and accessing our tools.