Happy Birthday.

So Dr. Girlfriend's little guy, Chris, had a birthday this week, and rather than go with the typical Super Mario Brothers pi offering, I figured I would get him his first toolbox and set of tools. After an hour and close to a hundred bucks at Harbor Freight, he had a pretty impressive set of starter tools, that, if forgotten, lost, stolen, or broken, would, in the end, just have been Harbor Freight tools. We are slowly going through everything to learn what does what.

With all that stuff, you need a decent toolbox. I was initially just going to get him your basic plastic Stanley (Or similar) box, then I thought about it and asked "What would I want?" The answer was metal. I managed to scrounge up this vintage blue hammertone toolbox at my folk's house. It had been my grandmother's for craft stuff, so it was not only a nice solid box but a nice solid heirloom. So I cleaned up the outer finish with just a wee bit of Minwax Furniture Refinisher and #0000 steel wool to take off the paint spatter and leave just the original hammertone paint. I then hit it with some Meguiar's Cleaner Wax and my yard sale buffer. Brought the shine back quite nicely if I say so m'seff. Finally, I topped it off with a custom set of decals with his name-you can pick ones up like this off Ebay, they are two-layer, but come on one transfer film like any other die or laser cut decals. For about eight bucks, you can really make something pop with personalization.

The toolbox went over like no one's business-we are carefully choosing our first project now. Maybe a birdhouse?