Meet the 'Behemoth'



Meet the 'Behemoth'



BEHEMOTH : something of monstrous size, power, or appearance…I can’t think of a better name for the monstrosity that has taken up residence inside of the garage in the place where my car usually resides. There are two sides to our garage: mine and his. When not parked in the garage our vehicles are subjected to the perils of mother nature…rain, snow, sleet, hail, pollen, bird crap…you name it and it is likely to have fallen on my own car sometime in the past year. Just since the behemoth came home, I know of at least 3 birds who are using my car as their personal toilet! Somehow I think the intentional placement of the beast on my side of the garage is hubby’s way of forcing me to address the problem I have with bringing home strays. Not strays in the typical sense, you see, this stray is one heck of a brainchild that came to me during inspired moment recently.

Back up to where this behemoth originated….About a year ago a local department store in a mall closed its doors and offered up their floor displays (you know…the ones with dress shirts and sweaters) to anyone with a truck large enough to tote them off. A few fellow coworkers made the pilgrimage to the mall, confiscated those displays they thought could be of use in our line of work and away they went. I’m still not quite positive how they got them loaded onto the rented flat bed truck but do recall it taking a forklift to get them unloaded into the warehouse located on the backside of our offices at the time.

Over the last year our employer, not unlike many in these tough economic times, had several rounds of lay offs resulting in very few staff left in a far too oversized office. Just recently the decision was made to downsize to a smaller place…a smaller place without the advantage of a warehouse for storage. As we packed up the office those humongous displays loomed over us begging for a decision to stay or go. Knowing we had no room to house them, we unloaded as much as we could to a local used office supply company deciding to donate the last standing soldier they wouldn’t take to whatever organization was willing to come pick it up. Over the course of a few days as we talked about contacting our local Habitat store my thoughts kept circling back to that lonely display and what I could possibly find to do with it. I just couldn’t bear the thought of it ending up being treated as salvage goods with the potential to be demolished down to spare parts. I made the decision to bring it home and repurpose it into something grand. Logistics and planning aside this baby was mine. I announced this plan to a friend who made arrangements to have it loaded onto his truck (with a forklift mind you) and delivered to my house. I eyeballed it thinking it wasn’t that big and surely would be a quick and easy move into whatever spot it would soon lovingly call home. I arrived home to find it parked inside of our garage in my spot.

Later that same week I was thinking the time had come to begin a rework on my dining room. I suddenly had that ‘flash of inspiration’ I’d been waiting for when bringing the beast home to my garage…the behemoth would become my new dining room table. I’ve long searched for the perfect table for that room never finding anything that I loved enough to spend money on or time on to repurpose. Remember, this is the must have separate dining room that gets used about twice a year for it’s named purpose…the rest of the time it serves as the kids toy box and our dump and run room…you’ve all got one of those, right? That room where everything gets dropped off never to make it to the proper destination. It’s like an out in the open junk drawer that you cannot close and hide.  This beast would soon be transformed into the envy of the neighborhood because not only would it make a great dining table but a multi-purpose one as well. This thing was large enough and functional enough to transform my dining room into a clean mean storage machine for all things toy, dining and/or office related.



Sliding divided drawer
in position



Sliding divided drawer
out position

First course of action was to slide it into the center of the garage so I might get my car in. Parking in the garage is important this time of year, especially with 3 kids, being that there are threats of violent thunderstorms and tornados on a weekly basis. I made the first attempt all by myself and pulled every muscle from my neck to my ankles. I waited a few days to heal up and then employed hubby to help. Surely the two of us could at least slide the beast over just enough to make some extra room. With a few grunts and groans from me and multiple expletives from hubby the beast didn’t budge. Ok…I have the solution….lets remove the cubbies that slide in and out like drawers to lighten the load and THEN it will slide with ease. Drawer # 1-4 out in a flash…Drawer 5-8 too low to the ground to get my screwdriver under and release so looks like we’re going to have to find a way to raise the beast up. By this time I could see the annoyance written all over hubby’s face. ”Lets lift from the bottom…. On the count of three…One, two, threeeeeee”…OH LORD!!!  I think hubby just busted a blood vessel in his head from straining…OH CRAP!!!…I just re-injured the same muscles previously strained during my solitary attempt to move this dang thing…don’t let it show, don’t let it show….wince, wince, wince…suck it up…tough it out….don’t cry, don’t cry…. Had I shown the least bit of defeat or pain on my face it would have been all over then and there…hubby would have called in forces to remove and destroy what he had deemed ‘the HUNK-O-JUNK’. Now what??? Ahhh…I have a jack in my car for those flat tire occasions…never used it myself but it’s there and I’m sure we can figure it out…we…wait, where did hubby disappear to? Oh well, I’ve got work to be done and the beast will NOT defeat me today. After approximately 1 hour of maneuvering that jack under the beast and getting it up off the ground high enough to remove drawer 6 & 7 it occurred to me that if we were having this much trouble lifting this thing with most of the drawers removed how the heck were we going to get it up the deck stairs and down the length of the house through the French doors (because those are the only ones wide enough for this thing to fit through) and into the dining room…and CRAP…was our floor even supported enough to handle the weight of this thing??? Yes…the things I should have thought of BEFORE having this brought to my house and into my garage where it might never leave….





And that, my friends, is where this story typically ends. You see…normally you would be able to visit me a year from now and find the behemoth in exactly the same spot it was delivered to a few weeks back  Never fear though…You would quickly be advised the project is on that mythical list of things I plan to do when I find time. I began working through the actual logistics earlier this week so I could formulate a plan by the weekend. Those logistics began with a few quick measurements which helped me determine if the fella will actually fit in the room…thank GOODNESS it will…I’d have never heard the end of it. I’ve even started looking at paint colors to try and give it a little character. Eventually I will need to make a top for it so it can actually serve as a table with storage beneath…then find chairs high enough to sit in and eat or learn to build risers for my current chairs, then those chairs would need to be covered…oh, and don’t forget new curtains and that rug (still #76 on the list)…all of this is making me tired which is exactly what typically happens when I’ve bitten off more than I can chew.

The biggest part of this blog process for me is finishing precisely these sorts of projects one at a time before being distracted into starting something else. Publicly vowing to see this through is a great starting point. I’ll post a progress report by the end of the weekend.  Wish me luck. Until next time….