The Wood Conundrum

It’s way less exciting than deciding between teak and mahogany, and though it is not DIRECTLY related to boat projects, it kind of is. After all, cleaning out the garage and selling the house is a cruising prep project as critical as getting the bunk and galley ready for use!

*Wood. This is not the wood I’m talking about.*

Jeremy is a talented DIY guy. There’s pretty much nothing he can’t tackle on his own, from plumbing to electrical to sewing to diesel engine installation. He created a weather routing system just for fun, because he knew we’d need it when we set off again.

A lot of his projects, both for the house and for the boat, have involved wood. Sure, there’s the current bunk work on board, but there’s also been a bunk bed and work table for Julian, various and sundry outdoor pieces of furniture, and a whole host of things that have involved sawdust and some power tools, after numerous rounds of measuring.

Inevitably, this means purchasing more wood.

(We do have some teak scraps, some from our own work as well as ones left from Jeremy’s dad, that are likely to find a good home on the boat. These we’re not talking about here!)

In our garage are the scrap remains (some very large scraps) from those various projects. We have batten pieces and 2x4s, plywood bits of various thicknesses and sizes, long pieces and short ones. These wood bits fill three different “corners” of the garage and threaten to fall over and brain anyone who walks too close. There’s a ton of really usable dead tree, and we’re at the point that no, we will not use it. No, it’s not driving to Vermont to sit in the garage up there. And HELL NO it’s not coming on the boat.

We’ve been semi-scratching our heads on what to do with it. We could build some massively impractical playset for our kids who are no longer of swinging age. We could get into a routine of nightly fire pit fires, flaming the sky with this wood. Or we could offer it up to someone who might use it.

The last option, as you might imagine, is definitely our favorite.

But who to give it to?

Luckily, a colleague from work overheard my woe-sharing. She mentioned that she knew someone who was a wood tinkerer who loves to make useful items with wood (latest is a mobile chicken hut) AND has a house with a lot of shed storage for the wood AND has a pickup truck to collect the wood.

Here’s hoping the wood conundrum is solved soon. The garage would float higher on its lines!