Kody's man cave

I'm beginning to think Kody got the better end of this house deal - coming away with a garage, a future shed (well, I guess he has to build that himself) and a study basically all to himself!

Not that we're exactly splitting the house in half, or that either of us compromised when buying buying this house. And I'm well aware that I got a better-than-I-could-have-hoped-for kitchen, but still...Kody is having waay too much fun buying man-things and building man-stuff in his man-caves.

That said, I most definitely appreciate his man-spaces because it means his toolbox no longer lives in our closet and our bikes no longer take up half our bedroom.

One of Kody's first projects was to build a work bench at the back of the garage. He and his dad worked on it and it turned out amazing!

I didn't get any in-progress pictures because I was at work while this project took place, but here's what it looked like after a day's worth of work:

Doesn't that just look amazing and isn't it so super cool that I have a husband who can build something like that?!

Here's what the garage looked like on the day we moved in:

Thankfully, it wasn't left in shambles. Although they did leave about 12 empty cans of paint for us to dispose. When Kody started working on the garage, he immediately cleaned out the entire thing and took apart the bench on the left and table in the back. He used this wood, along with some we bought, to build the work area.

We then proceeded to fill it up with all our crap (sorry for using the c-word, Mom).

Shall we all count the number of new tools Kody has gotten since buying a house? :) Lawn mower, edger, shop vac, drill, air pump, power washer, saw and I'm sure a few more. He has used all of them already and I'm sure over the next few years they'll all get lots of abuse.

After finishing the frame, Kody added doors to the bench and stained it using the floor stain we used in our house.

For some reason I haven't taken any "finished product" pictures of his work bench, but here are a few with the bench in the background. Kody sanded and stained our entertainment center, so I caught a few of those pictures.

Isn't he so talented!? Doesn't that just look amazing! And isn't it so cool to think he built that, from scratch, with his own hands?! I could never do something like that! It's been so fun to see Kody "in his element" while working on this house. I always knew he enjoyed working with his hands and building things, but in the five years we've been together, I've never really gotten to see it in action. It's been so neat to see him slaving away on this house, in hopes of making it more and more into the home we want it to be.

Thanks love for all your hard work and for being such an amazingly talented and skillful man!