Onne’s home workshop isn’t large, but it’s well tricked out to build, fix or upgrade his 1986 Grand Banks 32, Snow Goose.
When Onne and his wife, Tenley, were fixing up their Jamestown, Rhode Island, home, he would work under the eaves, but when it rained, he couldn’t get things done. He told her he would love to have a workshop. They built it right next to the house. He made the workbenches and the cupboards himself and had a utility sink installed.
The workshop was particularly helpful when the weather was too cold to work on the boat. When it was over 40 degrees, Onne could use a heater to get the temperature inside the boat up to 55 degrees to do plumbing, electrical work and maybe even paint. But he would stockpile jobs for the days when it was too cold outside. “Those days when it was cold and miserable, I could work in the workshop,” Onne says. “It’s nicely lit, and I have all the tools I need to repair or fabricate things, whether it’s aluminum, Starboard, or wood.
Over time he has loaded up the shop with all the tools he needs, including a table saw, bandsaw, chop saw, grinder, buffer, drillpress, sanders, planers and various hand tools to fix almost anything.
“It gets me a lot of pleasure,” Onne says. “I love my workshop. It’s my space. I close the door and I listen to NPR or some nice classical music. It’s a great place to work with my hands. For me, that is huge. I trained as machinist. That’s my background, so I get a lot of pleasure out of that. It’s just as rewarding as going out on a boat or a helicopter to get some cool imagery.”
“I’m fortunate that my wife didn’t say, ‘I want a library or a spare room,’” Onne says. “She loves that she can say, ‘can you make me a table?’”
Or fix up a 1986 Grand Banks 32.
You can tour Onne’s workshop in this video.
