Basement Update



The finished job of cleaning out the northwest corner



The mess was half cleaned up before I remembered
to take the picture.



The last three weeks have been busy in between fighting a sinus infection.  I did get the northwest corner cleaned up and moved to the new shelving I put up in the northeast corner.  Before I could set up the shelving I need to cut down a pipe with old wiring in it.  I believe this wiring may have been where the original fuse box was located.  The pipe was cut off about 6 inches above the floor when they removed the old pipe and wiring.  I first tried a hack saw and then moved to use a jig saw to cut the pipe and final used a hammer to nock the partly sawed pipe off.  Using the hammer loosen the cement around the pipe so I mixed up just enough cement to fill in the area around the pipe and let it set a week before I could touch up the floor paint.

The wires were not live.

A week later I finished touching up the floor and could start setting up the shelving.  That Saturday, I stop by the local lumber yard and brought a ¾” sheet of plywood for the flooring of each shelf since it was cheaper to cut the flooring to size than to buy it precut.  The unit I brought you can buy the end shelves and the number of railing need for how many shelves you need and I decided on four shelves.  It took a day to move all the stuff and arrange it on the shelves.   I also moved the table and pulled the washer and dryer out from the wall.  Now, I finally have access to the remaining wall section that needs to be fixed.

The finished cut pipe.

On Saturday I starting removing the loose section of concrete with a scraper and finished removing loose paint and concrete with a wire brush attached to my electric drill.  The wire brushing is necessary but the cloud of dust in the basement is bad.  Before I started I stuffed towels in the crack between the basement door and first floor and also the doorway to the finished sewing room in the basement.  A dust mask (not the white fiber mask) is a must along with ear muffles and a face mask.  I can only take about an hour before I need to take a break and let the dust settled before the next round.  It took about 6 hours with all the breaks before the wall was done.  I spent all Sunday vacuuming and cleaning the layer of dust that I created on Saturday.  The worst part is now over and the remaining work on water proofing the basement should be easy.