Tag: basement clean-up

February 15, 2024 – Along the Lines of Yesterday

February 15, 2024 /

Yesterday I talked about waffling about whether I should invest in a garden space and things like fruit trees and bushes if I am planning on moving. The same is true with all home projects. The wisdom in the space is to be careful about changes that are made so that you don’t overspend compared to value of the house.

This project that I have been picking away at is not one of them. I cannot say how much improvement there is in my basement by tucking ducts up into the floor joists. It hardly costs any money and it make the space so much more open and accessible. I used to have to duck under two ducts each time I entered and left my office. That has all changed.

Not only is it easier to get to my office, having the duct tucked up in the ceiling allows more light over the whole space. There are two windows in the basement, more natural light is coming in as well as the electrical fixtures. Because the ducts were hanging down, they were constantly in the way of moving decorations and other storage items around. All of that is going away with each duct I move.

I won’t be able to do all of them because they don’t all run parallel with the floor joists. But, doing the major pathways has paid major dividends on the usability of the space. It looks better too, not just an after thought or the laziest installation possible.

To date, I have spent about $100 on materials. I have never worked with duct work before since this is typically a one and done type job. That being said, I am kind of liking it. I ended up buying a crimping tool so I can make my own custom lengths or rigid pipe. The truth is that the original installers taped the flex duct to the rigid fixtures and over time, that tape has failed. I have already had to fiddle with trying to re-attach ductwork that is in my way over the years.

This is one of those projects that fits into the do it regardless of how it effects value. In my opinion, there is no way that it could hurt and it is so little initial outlay of time and money, I should have done this years ago (it should have been done this way originally). So, I will pick away at it a couple hours at a time until I have done what I can do.

End Your Programming Routine: If it was simple, I would be done already. I have to delicately pick my way through different things like re-enforcing structure or wires in the way that have to be reconfigured etc. But, I am doing this purposefully and carefully and each one of those things adds a little dimension to the puzzle without having heat all day. It is a new kind of challenge.

September 27, 2023 – Summer is Over, Officially

September 27, 2023 /

September 23 is the first day of Fall. So we can now officially declare it to be true. Major rain has come and the daylight has hit the less than 12 hours per day. For several weeks I have been working to clean-up things in order to prepare for the season. To me that means brining in the outdoor furniture, hoses and things and get everything off the floor of the basement.

Last week, my wife hired an organizer to redo storage in the kitchen pantry. This of course drove more stuff into the basement that I had to find a home for. Before we hosted the German exchange student and before my son went to Taiwan, he packed up his entire room and brought all that stuff into the basement. Also, moving my gun safe into the shop moved a lot of my tools that I had in the shop into the basement. Consequently, despite all of my efforts last year to get organized, I need to start over.

I think that I mentioned in August that I was gathering stuff to go to the dump. That is still true. I took an entire car load to donate and I am getting close to another. I just feel overwhelmed with stuff. I of course have my specific items but then there are other things. I have to keep thinking that if we do decide to move then we are are going to be needing to do this anyway.

I have decided that the lynchpin to organization is two pronged. One is purging things that we don’t want like the second vacuum, baby gates, coat tree etc. But the other is building the wine cellar. I can not only clear shelf space but also consolidate like items like brewing equipment, the keezer, kegs, carboys, etc.

I need to move the brewing stuff because my seed starting station is in the way to bring in all of the outdoor furniture. I didn’t say that but that is where my tools went when I had to move them to accommodate the gun safe in the shop. Can you see how exhausting all of this is?

There are a number of things that I would like to get rid of. To be fair, we all share the space so as much as I would like to get rid of things, I have to consider others opinions as well. Some things silently disappear while most end up in a conversation about the value and disposition. That makes this process a delicate dance of compromise. All that being said, If or when we move, the changes will more likely go my way then they are going now.

What can we learn from all of this? Well, I am starting to get to the point of thinking before purchasing. I need to know that I have room or a place to put something before I convince myself that I want something. I have also started considering that it is so much easier to buy things than it is to get rid of them. I hate to throw away things that have value, so I want to consider the lifecycle of items.

If you have missed the boat and already have too much stuff like me, then apply the litmus test of usage. Have I used this in a year? Do I have plans to use this? I have three brand new crab traps that I got for my birthday in 2007 when we had a boat. I hold on to them thinking that I would like to have a boat again. But, the boat that I want and the boat that my wife wants have two different purposes and I don’t want to buy a boat that I wouldn’t take crabbing. That being said, I really need these crab traps out of my way and 16 years is way too long on a hope. I do want to get a couple dollars for them though.

You don’t want this process to take all year but you don’t have to do it in a weekend. Set yourself some milestone goals. For instance, I am putting stuff to go to the dump in the back of my pick-up. I need that to be empty before I leave for deer hunting in about two weeks. So, either I will be done with this part of the process or I will be moving more stuff around before I go. Ideally, I will have everything identified and disposed of by that date.

End Your Programming Routine: This is the second time around that I have declared this project to begin. This will be a marathon, not a sprint. I may have other projects start before this is finished. My wife is pushing me for several woodworking projects as well. But, believe it or not I needed to clean-up in order to get to my wood pile. I have so much to do.

September 14, 2021 – Be Gone

September 14, 2021 /

It seems like every few years, I get on a cleanup kick. It is probably more like I run out of energy every few years and then something sparks it back up. That is the case here. Now that my office is done and stuff is strewn all over the basement, it is time to get organized again. There is no sense putting everything back.

The day after I quit my job in 2019, I spent the afternoon in the basement. It was my intent to start cleaning out and consolidating. That was the last time I made any attempt. But, now it is for real since my office took over space that was formerly storage and now there is less of it.

I have another motivator, fall is coming. With the weather change comes the occasional flooding in the basement. I always spend some time in the fall moving and preserving all the things that get carelessly left out in the bustle of summer parties and knowing there is a tomorrow to take care of it.

This year is more than a tidying up, it is a major remodel. I am finally getting rid of my college textbooks and old software, the original drapes my wife’s grandfather’s desk, baby furniture parts, etc. First, I need to reclaim some space that I lost, but second I haven’t accessed most of that stuff since it made it into the basement in the first place. In fact, some of it didn’t make it out of the box it was packed in before we moved in 2005.

I typically don’t consider myself a pack rat. Using my textbooks as an example At the time that I got them, there was barely an internet. Certainly, in the mid 1990s it was not developed like it is today. The reason I kept them was that it was the only way to access that specific information at the time. I hate to throw them out because the information is still valid, but I am not an active chemist anymore. I haven’t used that information in over ten years at least.

My now Linux computer still has a 3.5″ floppy drive. I paid an extra $100 when I built the computer to have it. At one point, earlier in my career I did access some calculations that I did in school. They were highly complicated calculus equations to model tank volumes which I used as a chemist. But, I haven’t been a chemist since 2008. Both mine and my wife’s college work is on the stack of disks. I am going to save the data before I toss the disks.

To be 100 percent honest, I have no idea what is on the 5.5″ floppy. Our first 8086 IBM in 1986 had a 3.5″ drive so I don’t know why I would have the other size disk. I kind of think it came from my wife but I have no ability to access the disk.

About a year ago, we helped my in-laws move back into their house after a remodel due to water damage. What I was saying to them was this is a process. You have to know that you have it, you have to know where it is and you have to use it at least occasionally.

We do have a few things that I am not quite ready to part with despite the fact that it doesn’t meet that criteria. For instance, we have a silver plated punch bowl that we got for our wedding. I think we have used it at most three times. But for most everything else, it needs to go.

End Your Programming Routine: I am trying execute this in the most efficient way by minimizing the trips to the dump and donation centers. That being said, it is difficult to keep moving piles to new piles but I am getting through it. I think that it going to take a couple weeks as I continue to peck at it in my free time. I am looking forward to finishing this project.

March 8, 2020- It’ll do for now

March 8, 2021 /

I suppose that you could say that this is my second official weekend since I began my new job. While working for Amazon, I don’t think that I had an entire weekend but I did have blocks of two consecutive days off, I just never really knew when they would be. We would get our schedule for the next week (starting on Sunday) on Friday. I pretty much kept every kind of planning in limbo.

So, now that there is some normalcy, I am feeling the pressure to get stuff done when I have the time. It is also the appropriate kind of stuff that needs to be done like I finished pruning the apple tree on Saturday. I needed light, I wanted reasonable weather and I needed it to be done before it starts budding out, which is coming fast. One more thing about that, I haven’t done that job in probably over ten years, it took a lot more effort than I remember or expected.

I have stated that building an office is a priority. I can’t build an office if I am spending all of Saturday pruning and all of Sunday with the family. I talked about pruning already but my boys have a campout this weekend with the Boy Scouts and despite all of our previous efforts, they still don’t have adequate gear. We had to get that sorted out before next Saturday because they need pack weights and meal plans to be made, etc.

For the last couple of weeks, I have been working off the dining table. That works to a point, but we need that space to eat. That means that I am daily setting up and tearing down. I have also added an extra monitor to my routine because the workspace on a single laptop display is not good for comparing two documents or having a meeting and viewing other documents at the same time. For productivity reasons, I needed an office sooner rather than later.

I decided last week that part of what was holding me back on starting was that it was such a mess in the basement. Stuff is piled everywhere. One thing that I have to do during the rainy season is make sure that anything that could get damaged is off of the floor. That leads piling stuff on stuff to protect our precious junk. It is not just that, it is also I am the only one who manages anything in the basement. It becomes the refuge everything that has been rotated out of service, but still has value including nick-knacks, clothes, seasonal items, etc. I cant even start until I have room to start and I have no room to start.

Sunday night, I started clearing the way and just organizing. I thought that if I could just clear enough space to work, it would also help get me motivated to continue. The other bugaboo is that the basement is essentially unheated. It is tempered by being mostly underground and there is some leaking heat, but too cold to want to sit for hours. I figured that would also push me to work faster. Here is what I came up with.

After sitting through my first one hour meeting, I knew that I was going to have to make some changes to the heat situation. I have a sweatshirt and a jacket on as well as wearing a hat. My upper body is OK, but not my legs and feet. I have a baseboard heater that I salvaged out of the apartment remodel that I was planning on using in the office, but I need heat now. I also have an empty 240V circuit that had a baseboard heater in the bathroom which I removed years ago because the bathroom has central heat now.

I quickly wired the baseboard heater under my computer table to see if that will make a difference, I think it will but I need to be more in front of the heater and not to the side like I am currently setup. So, more junk organizing to come. I may also need to add some deflectors to keep the heat originating under the table and not defusing in all directions.

I will want to shut-off the heat at the circuit breaker each day because a baseboard will continue to heat if the temperature drops below a minimum level, nominally 50 degrees F. I also want to get a thermometer down here to monitor the daily temperature swings with and without heat. My ultimate office plan includes insulation, so this heater will be completely adequate for that use but there is no way for it to warm a leaky basement. Right now this is only a comfort measure.