It has taken me 3 weeks and lots of paid and friendly help to consolidate my husband's 30x30 shop into a 10x30 ft area so I can turn the rest of it into an Airbnb cabin. It's also the way I'm going to get to pay for any help I need as I age.

My kids all live too far away and I don't want to disrupt their lives. That means if I'm going to live on my own I will probably need some help in my 90s. I plan to move into the smaller facility and rent out my home to pay for the care I will need. Of course if I have a stroke and become a vegetable my plan won't work but maybe I'll be lucky.

I sold $3,500 worth of tools plus a tractor when Kenneth died. I've always been frustrated by the fact that I can never find what I need in the shop but another bonus with this reconfiguration is I put everything in place therefore I will be able to find it. When he first died I brought in a set of utilitarian tools that I thought I would need and put them in my dog room. I think there are nine hammers in that drawer and I found 37 more hammers out in the shop if you count the sledgehammers. It was nice to be able to gift my friend helpers with a hammer or two. I still have lots of things I will never use but some of them are kind of sentimental so I kept them.

I took pictures of the end result and wish I had taken pictures of the mess I started with but I didn't. The first picture is my dog food drawer. The last picture is the view I'll have from my bedroom window if I have to move. Why it is sideways and all the other pictures are not is a mystery.