This year Father’s Day came early. No, I’ve not moved to Romania, Tonga, or Germany (they all celebrate Father’s Day in May). It is just that Paul and Jake decided to move up Father’s Day a whole month. I needed help installing shelves in my garage so Paul and Jake decided to give me an early Father’s Day present by helping me all day.

Last week Paul and I had made our 23 foot beam out of nine 2×4’s, glued and screwed together. We also constructed the needed supports at opposite ends of the garage. Today Jake joined us to install a 4×4 center post for support. We went shopping for plywood for the shelves. Home Depot cut the panels for us 3 foot wide.

While the boys were attaching the first panel, I was installing 2×4’s as supports for the shelves. We are making this up as we go along and we ran into a problem later on. The damaged sheetrock happened when I removed the old shelving.

The idea behind this particular garage shelf is that it is above head height. It is 23 feet long and three feet wide but not quite high enough so that the door will open all the way. Oops. Jake cut away half an inch of one of the 2×4’s in the beam to allow the door to open.

The Christmas trimmings had to be relocated to the garage when new attic insulation was installed. I didn’t want a lot of boxes (there really are a lot of boxes) compressing the insulation. Hence the need for new storage. I would like to compress all these trimmings into one small box but that is another story.

One thing I did plan for was for the car top carrier. It is not used very often so storing it up out of the way was my plan. I will mention here that building the shelves didn’t take up all of the day. So Paul and Jake continued working by cleaning up the whole garage, which needed it.

Jill contributed to the early Father’s Day by buying me three Rubbermaid FastTrack tool holders. The idea is that the attachments can be moved around as needed. I was planning on building my own but then I would have been in the garage until midnight.

This is the best Father’s Day present that a Dad could receive. Instead of a gift that I already have or do not really need, I get to be with my boys all day constructing something that I do not have and really want.

Happy Father’s Day,