Basement Adventures: Planning

It's just one line item on our Big Adventurous List but waterproofing the basement is a huge task with what was a huge post, but I’ve decided to break it down into a few posts.  What make this task even more cumbersome right now is that I can't help with much of it AND getting the basement under control is step one in the cascade of events to pull together the nursery before April.

This is the basic layout of things that we can’t move, or at least can’t move with out a lot of trouble.  I didn’t include the support columns but they run down the middle of the space the long way, there are a few doubles right in the middle of the house near the furnace.  Phase One of the Basement Adventure was the massive cleaning we did after we moved in.

This is the layout of things as they are now(the built in shelving under the stairs is still there somehow the labels got lost!), the wall with the storage shelving on it and the floor from that wall to the bottom of the stairs have already been painted.  Those will not move during Phase Two.  The other storage shelving was all existing, we kept the best of it and moved everything to the middle of the space to paint/waterproof the walls and the perimeter of the floor.  Not included in this layout is furniture that will be part of the Phase two re-arrangement but it has all been moved around for painting.

This is how we will hopefully have things arranged at the completion of Phase Two.  It will give Bruce a nice open space for his workshop, his many, many tools aren’t on the layout but the will most likely line the short wall.  Our wood stove has been a workhorse this winter and running it cuts our oil bill way down but so far we can’t really enjoy it the way we’d like to.  But once the majority of the waterproofing is done it will feel safe to bring the old club chairs down from the attic for some comfy seating and Bruce will set up his desktop on the vintage metal desk that has always been down there.  The purple box around the washer and dryer area will be the only area un-waterproofed, setting up a finished laundry area will be Phase Three.