As close as I could figure, it weighed about 700 pounds.

"I'm not going to be using it anymore," my father-in-law said. "If you want it, you can have it."

I spent an hour with a screwdriver and a crescent wrench, breaking it down into semi-manageable pieces.

We shoehorned the pieces into the back of the van and drove it 100 miles to our house, where we lugged it into the basement.

Putting the pieces back together was easier than taking them apart.

I tipped it right side-up, dragged it across the floor next to the furnace, and stood back to admire my handiwork.

The room was suddenly transformed.

Time for work

I was now the proud owner of a heavy duty, steel-framed, you-could-park-a-truck-on-it tool bench.

I felt a surge of manly power.

I'm not mechanically inclined, but I've always felt that all I really needed was the right workspace; the kitchen table is not the proper location to replace a cord on a lamp. The garage floor is not the proper place to paint a birdhouse.

I spent much of the weekend digging through junk drawers, cardboard boxes and cobwebby corners of the basement, pulling together a motley assortment of tools and fix-it gear I've accumulated over the years:

• a Cool-Whip container filled with old nails; half of them were bent, and all of them were rusty.

• a 10-piece set of drill bits that was missing 1/8 and 3/16.

• stiff-bristled paint brushes in several sizes

• a broken tape measure that started at 5 inches

• an old TV dinner tray, with wing nuts in one compartment, cotter pins in another and Band-Aids in the third.

• a yardstick from the 1996 Minnesota State Fair

I spent some time arranging my tools, and I was finally ready to tackle my first project: a pop-up toaster that was no longer popping up.

I pulled an old kitchen chair up to the edge of the workbench, turned the toaster upside down and showered my new tool bench with antique toast crumbs.

I remained undaunted.

I started to remove one of the screws from the bottom of the toaster - and realized that I had no idea how to fix a broken toaster.

I came to the conclusion that spending $10 for a new toaster was preferable to the likelihood that trying to repair the old one would result in my electrocution.

Consult list

I set the toaster aside and consulted my list of long-overdue home fix-up projects: That crack in the living room wall

I grabbed a plastic tub of spackle off the workbench and pried the lid open with a screwdriver.

The Spackle had hardened into a solid, concrete-like block.

I was fairly certain that I had put the lid on tightly when I had last used it, and I vaguely remembered using it the day Jimmy Carter was sworn in.

I thought about writing a letter to the company, but it would have to wait until after I finished my home repairs.

I considered replacing a washer on the drippy faucet at the kitchen sink, but my mind kept drifting back to Ken Burns' images of Old Faithful, and I decided to leave that project to an expert.

I could see I needed more than three projects on my list.

I brushed toast crumbs off the bench and onto the floor (which is why tool benches are kept in the basement and not in the living room) and pulled out a small, worn cardboard box.

I removed the cards, shuffled them, laid them out in seven piles, and put a red four on a black five.

It's nice to have a tool bench.

Dan Conradt, a lifelong Mower County resident, lives in Austin with his wife, Carla Johnson, and their son.

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