Clean Up

Clean up: basement progress – the final stretch!

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

Soooo close to getting the basement done!

Okay, not completely done, because there are still weird things all over the place, but that can be taken care of slowly over time, even after we’ve set up for cats. So, done enough!

I decided to make use of the remaining shelves of the plastic shelving units I got for the old part basement, with its too low ceiling.

For where I wanted to put them, I had to make an even bigger mess.

It kinda looks like the room exploded. :-/ But, it had to be done!

Here is the final result for the shelves and counters against the old basement wall.

The plastic shelf on the yellow counter will help brace the rigid insulation that’s blocking the old window. There is a heat duct on the other side. It doesn’t even reach into the window, but just has an opening facing it, but there’s enough air pressure to push against the sheet of insulation. I’ve pokes holes in it to let more air through, but having the shelf against it will ensure it can’t be pushed off.

The counter top of the yellow shelf is sagging, and I needed to get the back legs of the plastic shelf as far back as I could, so I ended up laying some boards I salvaged from around the basement, leveled with pieces of floor tiles (those old floor tiles are coming in incredibly handy!)

In the process of working in this area, I checked out the cupboard under the other shelf. I’d only looked at the other half while working here before, and wanted to see if there were more things we needed to haul out.

I found three more motors.

Why are there so many motors??? Counting the ones already moved to the barn, we’ve found more than a dozen motors, scattered about!

At this point, I think we’re just going to leave them in the basement for now, instead of hauling them up the stairs and to the barn. It’s not like the cats can really do anything to them, and they can be hauled out later in the year.

That was just one area that I didn’t expect to have to go so far into. I also cleared out the area were we’d put the van’s original door. There was a whole bunch of stuff behind the old radio, and a sheet of plywood leaning against the old basement wall with more stuff behind it, that was definitely not cat friendly.

Here you can see the part of the old basement wall that had been underground when the concrete was poured. Unfortunately, it makes for a very uneven wall, which in turn makes for gaps we’re going to have to find some way to fill.

After moving out the stuff behind the plywood, I shoved the plywood back, pushing it further behind the lilac shelf, to block off the gap behind it. There is still a gap at the top we’ll have to figure out how to cover. The old radio, meanwhile, is now right up against the plywood, I put some cardboard on it to protect the top, and tiles under the base. The car door is back, and I’ve shoved the twin sized bed frame I’d been using for some time after my husband had to start using a hospital bed.

In the process of doing all this, I found stuff, of course.

Yes!!!! I found some plumb line!

It’s not the one I remember helping my dad use, but I’m happy to have found any at all. It will be quite useful in the future, I’m sure. I made sure to tuck it into a spot that was in the open, so I can find it easily in the future.

This next find was a surprise.

I haven’t seen this since I was … probably a pre-teen! I forget which of my brother’s made it. I think it was a school project. It’s modeled on a plaster cast version still sitting in the old kitchen.

It’s a keeper!

I also moved stuff into the unfinished bar area.

It’s got a bunch of fragile things that need to be protected from the cats, substances in various bottles, jugs and cans that the cats need to be protected from, and some of the stuff we found that we want to restore at some point. All we have to do now is rig up a door to keep the cats out.

Not a lot changed in this corner; I cleaned that shelf, but don’t really have anything to put in it, now that we’ve cleared the junk out. The chairs had been stored against the wall closer to the stairs, and I moved them here to open up the space there, and so they can be used. Some things, like the remaining piece of rigid insulation, will be moved out of there, as we do the last few things before letting the cats in.

More chairs were moved around that table, and the remaining shelf from the old basement got moved in to where I’d found another sheet of plywood. There are still gaps, because of the uneven wall, that need to be filled by the opening between the basements. We now need to also rig up a door of some kind between the old and new basements.

With the very odd shape of the opening, this is not going to be easy.

After this, we have to start hauling stuff out for either barn or junk piles. Once that’s out, the area just needs a quick clean up, and a filling of old mouse holes in the shelves under the stairs, and the root cellar. Then I can take our Christmas decorations out of the root cellar and move them back into this area.

We are so close to being done! But I am so dreading hauling the stuff out. Some of it is very heavy, and others just difficult and potentially dangerous to carry up the stairs. The girls and I will have to assembly line it.

But not quite yet. They’ve been working hard cleaning on the main floor, and we all need a break right now!

It’s pain killer and hydration time! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: more basement progress

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

The girls did a wonderful job in the basement, while I was baking bread! They got the big stuff moved back to the now-bleached and dry corner, the wire mesh over the counter to the unfinished bar, and a lot more cleaning, sweeping, scrubbing and vacuuming of cobwebs. :-D

Here are the before and after shots.

The wire mesh is up, and the more fragile items, and things potentially harmful to cats, are starting to be put into here. Eventually, a door of some sort will be rigged up, so the cat’s won’t be able to get in.

The pieces of Styrofoam at that long shelf were taken out of the windows. They were put in for the winter, before we moved here. They are cut to fit so snugly – and so much stuff was in the way – that we hadn’t been able to get them out before. Now, when the insulation around the outside of the house it moved away until next winter, there will be natural light in the basement.

Also, my daughters are hilarious.

Too funny!

Also, I guess I don’t have to ask what they found while cleaning.

I don’t want to know what the “mystery meat” or “soup” was. :-D

The table, shelves and cabinet are now all cleaned up and usable again.

They also started to haul stuff outside, including all the garbage bags.

A trip to the dump soon is definitely in order!!

Since I was down there anyhow, I checked out an old radio/record player that’s against another wall.

Except the record player part is gutted.

What about the radio? I was curious, so I stuck my phone around the back and took a blind shot.

Huh. Amazing. It hasn’t been completely gutted!

I have no idea what this is supposed to look like, but I’m sure there are parts and pieces missing.

For now, we have no plans to move this thing anywhere. I admit, for me, it’s more because I don’t want to deal with all the stuff shoved behind it.

Bit by bit, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: basement progress. Honest!

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

My daughter and I got a whole bunch of progress done in the basement. Unfortunately, we’re at that stage were, in order to work on new areas, we have to shove things into areas we’d already done a lot of clearing. Which means that, other than the area we worked on, the rest of the basement now looks like something exploded! :-D

The unfinished bar area is now dry, but we sprayed areas with an anti-mold agent, just to be on the safe side. So nothing has been put into there yet. I was also able to stop at the hardware store after dropping my other daughter off at work, and was able to get a roll of 1/4 inch wire mesh that we will use to block off the counter opening of the bar area. That will be put in before we do anything else in there.

Meanwhile, we emptied the back wall and opposite corner.

This is what it looked like, not long ago.

Right now, the entire middle area is almost completely blocked off with stuff we’ve set aside, including the long shelf against the wall.

We also moved the old, gutted phonograph and ancient radio, which are quite water damaged.

They are in such terrible shape!

The phonograph cabinet is at least still fairly solid, We might be able to just remove the veneer that’s peeling off and be able to restore it. The old radio… I have no idea. I’m pretty sure it’s gutted, too.

This damage would have happened shortly before we moved here, when my older brother discovered flooding in the basement from a rain barrel at the corner that was left to overflow for months of rain. The corner had even started to mold, and he’d had to move things away from the walls so he could scrub and bleach the area.

While emptying that shelf against the wall, tucked away in a corner at the very bottom, I found this.

I had hoped this was the missing filter my brother had installed the last time there were problems with the septic system. It hadn’t worked, so he took it off and set it aside, but it disappeared. It turns out to not be the one my brother had bought, but very similar. So… we’re still missing a filter that likely grew legs and walked away, along with so many other things over the years. :-(

Another thing we found was a “hidden in plain sight” sort of thing. These were sitting on top of the old phonograph.

Nothing special about these – until we flipped them over.

I’m guessing my sister drew these plans. I think she still freelances plans and blueprints for people, but these days, she uses a computer. :-D I think these might be the original plans for the shelves that now divide the living and dining rooms! The end result wasn’t quite so fancy (I love the addition of a little rotary dial telephone), but I can see how what we have now could have developed from these plans.

Once the corner was emptied, swept and cobwebs vacuumed away, my daughter worked on scrubbing and bleaching, while I worked on emptying a pair of shelves in the middle of the basement. Our boxes and bins of Christmas decorations have been temporarily moved to the root cellar, just to make space. The pile of stuff that needs to be hauled out, either to the barn, junk pile or dump, has grown quite a lot.

Once I emptied the shelves (including taking out 2 cases of paint cans that have never been opened, but are so old, the boxes are disintegrating), I worked on a tool chest that’s basically just a big box with a front panel that swings down, clearing off the stuff accumulated at the top. I’m not going to try and go through it’s contents, but I did check out the cabinet it was resting on.

Where I found it full of various liquids, gels, greases and… mystery liquid. I’ve been putting all the small containers in a small bin I found, only to find it was nowhere near large enough.

Some of these have been barely used. I would guess they were things my late brother had made use of, which would mean they have been sitting in that cabinet for 10 years for, at the very least, 10 years.

It’s a shame to have to throw out the braided rug that’s visible in the back. I remember helping my mother make rugs like this, using strips of cloth made from old clothes and other fabric items that were to worn out for their intended use. Unfortunately, the two braided rugs I have now found in the basements had been down there so long, they got moist, and look like they started to mold.

Here is what the basement corner looks like now, before and after washing.

It’s really kind of hard to see the difference between washed and unwashed walls, but it’s there! You can still see where the mold my brother scrubbed away has stained the corner. :-(

While cleaning up, we found another outlet, on the outside of the bar counter. An outlet that we could plug in the big blower fan! So that is now set up facing the corner to help dry it.

I have to remind myself that the rest of the basement looks far worse than it really is! Once these areas are dry and we can start moving things back into their more permanent places, it will get cleaned up and organized rather quickly. The hard part is going to be hauling out all the stuff that needs to be gotten ride of, one way or another.

The Re-Farmer

Clean up progress, and that’s kinda horrifying

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

The girls and I were able to get quite a lot of progress in the new part basement yesterday, and I was able to get into a particular area of concern today.

Here is our progress from yesterday.

The biggest progress isn’t even visible. We were able to get all the cans of paint and other… stuff… out from some cupboards. Some of them were leaking. I got another 2 wheelbarrow loads of cans of paint, stains, and mystery tines to the barn.

We found another 6 motors of varying sizes and condition to move to the barn. There’s an unopened back of grout compound that will need to be thrown away. Moisture got to it, and it’s a brick now. We found a snowmobile suit shoved into a garbage can. Now that I think about it, judging from the size, it may have belonged to my late brother. If it did, it may have been there for more than 10 years! These things are rather expensive, and it seems a shame to throw it away, but I just don’t see how it could be safe to use after being in the basement for even just a couple of years. Dust, mold mildew… still, we just hung it up on the wall for now.

Stuff that’s going to the barn are being set by the stairs for now, as well as a growing collection of garbage bags, with stuff for the junk pile or burn barrel in the shopping cart, and broken/damaged glass in a box, so we can haul it all out at once. That is always a challenge, since we need one person to lug stuff up the stairs, one person at the doors to grab stuff and stick it outside, and one person with a spray bottle on cat duty! LOL I look forward to not having to worry about keeping the cats out of this basement anymore!

Of course, we found all sorts of things in the process of cleaning, including…

…a collection of hammers, among other tools. I also moved the hand saw collection to the other basement, to join the ax collection. :-D

Today, I focused on the “bar” my late brother had started to build when he was still in his teens, but never finished. It had been mostly cleared out yesterday, but there were still a few things to take out so I could clean the area.

Some cow bells. Because, of course. Another shoe form.

A very old racking cane and siphon hose. We’d earlier found a box with wine making chemicals and supplies, all of which had to be thrown out.

I have no idea why there are so many wine making supplies around here. My parents didn’t use them, and the only members of my family that make their own wine, do it in their own homes.

An old, beat up suitcase full of light fixtures and electrical bits and pieces. Because where else would you put what is likely broken, unusable bits and pieces?

This next case makes me quite sad.

What the labels don’t tell you is that this is a portable screen printing kit.

On the right is where ink would be spread. The roller would be loaded with in there, then rolled over the screen on the other side, which would have the design on it.

Under the screen is the surface that would hold the paper being printed.

You can see how torn the screen it – and the tape that was put around it.

This thing was in pristine condition when we acquired it. It was one of many things that were left behind in the old house my parents got – I believe for the cost of moving it – and moved into the yard, where it is now being used for storage. I made the mistake of taking this case, and a box full of wrapped up printing blocks, to the Industrial Arts teacher in high school. He is the one that put the tape around the screen, and “cleaned” it with whatever solvents they had in the class (there was an old style block printer that we used to make “business cards” as a class assignment). As for the printing blocks, they were covered in grease that he cleaned up, then wrapped them in paper. Well, it turned out that grease was protecting the surface of those blocks, and they have since degraded horribly. I doubt they can be restored. I doubt this screen print kit can be restored fully, either. :-(

Another item I had to clear out turned out to be a surprise. I knew it was there, but…

… what I didn’t expect that 1) it hadn’t been cleaned since it was last used and 2) that it would still be full.

That’s right. When I tried to move it, I found it unexpectedly heavy. Then it started to slosh.

*shudder*

I don’t know how many years this has been sitting here.

I’m really hoping the liquid is just water or something, to serve as weight to keep is steady, because that’s just a hole on the bottom. It doesn’t lead to a basin or reservoir.

At least it is still sealed shut. There’s no smell or leakage.

We’ve found some pretty icky stuff since we moved in and started cleaning up. The worst so far had been old cat poop in a corner of what was my mother’s bedroom, and cat litter on the floor under a dresser. My dad hadn’t had a cat indoors for years before he went into the nursing home. The girls had also found a mouse skeleton behind a shelf upstairs. I think a used, dirty portable toilet filled with liquid now joins the list of most horrifying things we’ve found in the house since moving in.

*shudder*

There were many other things found as well, including glass lamp shades – one still in the box it was bought in – more paint cans and various other odd bits and pieces.

This is what the bar looked like, after I emptied it.

Yes, I was wearing a mask and gloves!

This was the main area of concern.

There is water damage. The wall the plywood is covering is the wall to the old part basement, so this would be from when it had flooded in the past, soaking through to this side. This is also one of the few areas where we found mouse feces.

Which meant extra care needed to be taken to clean up this area. Brushing and sweeping, vacuuming and finally a cleaning with bleach.

Here is how it looked when I stopped.

I now have a fan set up to dry it.

We have a moldicide spray that we’ll use on that plywood wall, too.

Once it’s all dry, we’ll use this to store things we want to protect from the cats, but don’t want to store in the old part basement. We’ll be making a “door” across the front, and I hope to pick up some wire mesh tomorrow, that we can use to cover the counter area to keep the cats out.

If all goes well, we will finish this tomorrow, set up some “nesting boxes” and a litter box, then bring in Butterscotch and Beep Beep.

I saw Butterscotch while I was doing my rounds this morning. She even allowed me to pick her up and carry her over the muddy areas. She is still pregnant, so we might be able to get this done in time, after all!

Just a little bit closer to being done!

The Re-Farmer

addendum: The girls and I talked about the portable toilet, and the two things behind the lid; one of which is an opening, the other looks like it can be squeezed down on. We thought it might actually be a flusher, so I went down to check the status of the floor, and stopped to read the label on that portable toilet. Sure enough, this is a flushing toilet top. It’s missing a part; there is supposed to be a chamber under it.

Which would actually have come in handy when our septic backed up. More comfortable than a honey pot!

If only it had been cleaned and emptied after its last use…

*shudder*

Clean up: basement progress

/ Re-Farmer / 8 Comments

Normally, Sunday is our day of rest. No unnecessary work is done.

Unfortunately, cleaning the basement has crossed over into the “necessary work” category. Part of the challenge is finding a time to do it when the girls and I are all physically up to it. We need to get it safe enough to use as a cat maternity ward, and we may already be too late for Butterscotch. I haven’t seen her all day today.

We got a huge amount of progress done, and there is still much to do. We’re not even doing much sorting. Though there were some things that very obviously needed to go straight to the junk pile, most went to be stored in the barn. Including…

… lots of motors. In the photo is 5 of the 6 small motors we cleared out. There are more, larger motors that still need to be moved. I will be trying to keep them all together in the barn. I have no idea what their state or status is, but my brother might now.

Of course, we also found all sorts of interesting things. Including this blast from the past for me!

Yeah. That’s a “throwing star”. One of my boyfriends in high school made it for me in shop class. It used to be nice and shiny, and boy could that thing sink keep into a wooden door!

We also found a panel of chain mail. I don’t know if it’s a front or back panel, but it was clearly meant for a very small person. I have no idea who in my family would have gotten themselves some chain mail!

Manual hair clippers! This was a cool and unexpected find! They were well protected in their box, thankfully. The massive towing chain and hook it’s leaning on is another unexpected find. :-D

A light bulb for a type of light I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere, yet.

(Thanks, 53Old, for your comments about this. This is a Made in Canada, 3AU6 vacuum pentode tube, most likely from one of the many TVs we acquired when my parents bought some property many years ago. There was an old shed that had at least a dozen old TVs in there, some of which had their solid wood cabinets converted into shelves we are using now.)

We also found some stuff I was really excited about. They are going to be quite useful!

A couple of modern planers, and a clamp. A bit of clean up, and I hope to get good use out of these.

I was more excited to find this.

A small vice with a table clamp. We have a larger vice in the shed we keep our lawn mowers in that I’ve already found useful, but it’s the type that gets affixed permanently to a surface. I was already thinking of seeing if I could find a smaller one with a clamp at one of the local hardware stores, and now I don’t have to!

We found lots of other things, too, that I didn’t get pictures of.

Here is how the basement looked, after we hauled some stuff out and called it a day.

All the rubber boots still in the shelves will need to be thrown out. They’re so old, they’re brittle.

Hmmm… Three table legs got taken to the barn. I wonder if that round table top is the table they belonged to?

At one point, the floor in the foreground was full of stuff that got hauled out. The shopping cart is full of old wood, picture frames and frame glass that needs to be removed with care. The cardboard box partially visible on the bottom right has broken glass in it.

The sheet of pink rigid insulation was brought down for something you’ll see in another photo. Some of this stuff will stay, while others will be hauled to the barn. The broom is leaning in my mother’s old sewing machine. That’s a keeper, for sure!

Quite a lot got cleaned out of the “bar”. Still lots more to get rid of. It’s still cleaner than it has been, in decades! We’ll need to get into it with a vacuum cleaner and crevice tool, to get rid of the very old mouse droppings and bits of broken glass.

There are still a few bottles to move out, but most of them have already been set aside into the old basement.

Eventually, we will go through these. The ones we want to keep, including for future bottle bricks, will be thoroughly cleaned. Unfortunately, a few of the old wine bottles we dug up still have liquid in them. *shudder* The rest will go to the landfill for recycling. There are a few bottles we found that might actually be collector items, too.

The rigid insulation is now covering an opening (formerly a window, I think) into the old basement. The main focus for here was to 1) make sure that opening stays covered and 2) there is no gap any future exploring kittens can fall into in the back.

The bottom cupboards of this shelf has lots of old paint cans in it. From the smell when I looked inside, there is at least one that is leaking.

The shelf itself is in pretty terrible shape, and I’d love to replace it some day.

Some day.

The other old shelf is in slightly better shape. At some point, I want to set up that drill press in an easily accessible location, and test it out.

Hopefully, we didn’t overdo it today, and will be able to continue tomorrow. Once we have it safe, and access to the old basement is blocked to cats, we’ll be able to set up a cozy area for kitties. I’m just hoping that, if Butterscotch has already had a litter, we can find them and bring them inside. It’s way too early for kittens, and their chances of survival are not that good right now. :-(

Lots of work to do before we get to that point, though!

The Re-Farmer

Clearing things out and potential salvage items

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My goal for today was to start getting things out of the basement and into the barn or junk pile, as appropriate. My daughters were doing a whole bunch of baking, but we were able to coordinate a time when we could work together on that.

I didn’t get as much done in the basement as I wanted, but there was still a lot of progress.

The first thing to do was shovel a path to the barn and get one of the doors clear enough to open.

There were a couple of problems. The first was that, having worked my way to the barn door, my hip suddenly did it’s thing. From one step to the next, I became unable to put any weight on my right leg, due to pain and instability.

I was, however, able to work on my left leg, so as long as I could just pivot around, I could finish clearing the barn door, moving my right leg around just enough to try and work out whatever was causing the pain in my hip joint. By the time I did, my hip was back to normal, and I could deal with the second problem.

There was a ridge of ice right at the door. The doors sag in the middle, and it was just high enough to prevent the door from opening. The plastic snow shovel couldn’t clear it away, but a steel shovel could chip away enough for the door to finally open.

These doors are feeling very fragile.

Once inside, I had to figure out where I could clear out a space to put things.

My goodness, what a terrible picture. My hands must have been shaking like crazy, after the shoveling! Normally, I take multiple photos, just in case, but not today. Ah, well.

So I’m in the middle of the barn at this point. The old cattle stalls in the front half were all full of things, but further back were some that might be workable. Of course, the hall in the middle needed to be cleared, too.

There was also the lean to on the side of the barn, which has more space, but…

When a metal roof was put on the barn (right on top of the rotting original roof), the lean to was skipped. As you can see, there is a lot of water in there. Water from the melting snow is dripping straight through a number of areas.

There was a stall that I could at least partially clear. In the process, I found…

… old trusses that are rotting where they touch the concrete. (That’s my gloved finger messing with the photo, there. LOL)

Those metal screens in the back are interesting, though. I might find a use for them.

This grabber was hanging at one end. This is not something I remember from when I was growing up here. I have no idea where it came from. Looking at the size of the handle, this is meant for two people to use. One of these days, I’d love to restore it.

After clearing some space, I also cleared away some stuff that was in the gutter in front of the old stall. Some pieces of wood had managed to fall under the lid of the cistern, so I opened it up to get them out.

I didn’t bother getting the rest of the junk out. I do wonder why these are hear. They couldn’t have fallen in with the lid in place.

This, btw, is a urine drain. When the cows did their business, most went into the gutters, and the urine would flow into the pair of cisterns on either side of the hallway. Once they were full, we just emptied them with a bucket.

This is how things looks after clearing things out.

I could now get through the hall to access the space I’d cleared.

There is a whole lot of stuff all over the barn. Including lots and lots of windows.

Like this one, which looks like something we might be able to use in a future cordwood practice building. After the outhouse, which will have strategically placed bottle bricks instead of windows, we’re thinking of making a garden shed, which will have windows.

With that in mind, I went looking at some of the other stuff lying about.

I rather like this steel, exterior door. If it’s not too water damaged, I think it would be fantastic for our outdoor bathroom. There aren’t keys, of course, so the deadbolt and probably the door knob would need to be replace. Likely the hinges as well. It looks like there’s only half hinges on there right now. :-D

There are also these huge pieces of window glass. Too big for any project we’re thinking of now, but perhaps usable for something else.

I also checked out a shed near the barn. I’ve actually been poking about a few places, as the snow melts enough for me to be able to access them, looking for the drawknife I know I saw, some time ago. I can’t remember where, though! So far, I have not been able to find it. :-( I was hoping to get it sharpened for use as we debark wood for the cordwood building.

The shed has more windows, including one that looks like it would work well in the deep walls of a cordwood building.

Why are there so many windows all over the place? Many of them are quite old, made before the more energy efficient double and triple pane windows were invented.

It may not look like much, but this aluminum double sink is still quite sturdy. I am thinking of cleaning it up and bringing it into the old basement, to go under the set of taps where the washing machine used to be.

Ah, there’s the table saw! I was hoping it wasn’t one of the things that grew legs and walked away while this place was empty.

Which makes me think it might now be in working order.

If it is, I’m going to be very happy! It will come in very handy for future projects.

I kinda sorta found a second one.

I spotted a blade in between the stacks of flooring. It seems to be a table saw, without it’s table!

Speaking of tables…

There’s a round table top, minus its legs (which might be lying about somewhere else, for all I know), next to yet another stack of windows.

I wonder if that big blower on the counter works? It looks like a larger version of what we have in the old basement.

They’re hard to see, but there are stacks of glass blocks under the counter. I was seeing some at the salvage yard website I found, and at salvage prices, blocks of this size were selling for $8 each. There’s probably about 30 or 40 of them under there.

At one end of the shed are more doors. That wooden door with the big glass window is probably an exterior door. The lock on it would be for a skeleton key. They certainly don’t make doors like this anymore – with reason!

Then there’s a sections of a fence, that was clearly cut apart with a saw. :-/ And more windows. Because there are windows, everywhere!

Hopefully, we’ll be able to find most of the materials we need to build our first cordwood practice building in all of this!

Then there was this thing.

I have no clue what this thing is. If anyone knows, please leave a note in the comments, because I would love to find out!

I also found these.

Just… tucked away, under a shelf.

I really don’t think these go back to when my dad worked in a shoe factory. They are newer than that.

So many things… so few explanations! :-D

With the space cleared in the barn, it was time to get stuff out of the basement.

Which… didn’t go as well as I had hoped. My hip did its thing again, part way through, and we ended up stopping sooner than I’d hoped.

That shopping cart has been coming in very handy, including as an impromptu walker!

We did get a decent amount out, though.

At this point, we just needed to get the stuff out of the house, so my daughter put the stuff in organized piles. Glass and regular garbage in one area, the water damaged shelf, riddled with nails, for burning, hazardous materials, including mystery liquids, and stuff to go to the barn for storage, or the junk pile.

Once my hip was working again, the girls went back to baking and I got the bigger wheel barrow and started hauling things away.

I also grabbed a cane from our collection to keep handy, just in case! :-D

Then, since I was hauling things into the barn anyhow, I cleared a few things from the garage, too.

It’s still a disaster, but I was able to clear out more batteries, paint cans, and some jugs and 5 gallon pails of mystery liquid.

I discovered that this wheelbarrow can handle only 2 batteries at a time. Those things are heavy!!

Gosh, there is a lot of junk to sift through in there. :-( Somehow, we have to separate out the junk from the stuff worth keeping. I see some sort of little compressor under there.

After many trips back and forth to the barn (I had my phone in my pocket, and walked far enough to hatch 3 Pokemon Go eggs! That would make it at least 2 kms of walking, probably more), this is the result.

I’ve got the hazmat mystery liquids and paint in one area, a total of 11 car, truck and possibly tractor batteries (there are at least two more in the side of the garage where we keep the lawn mower, and probably more in the basement) and a couple of old sump pumps. My brother tells me that at least one of them works, as it was used as an emergency pump at some point. There are others that will make their way in here, too. I’m hoping to get the old door from the van into the barn as well, and there are quite a lot of other things that I’d like to get out, including what appears to be a collection of motors. If we run out of space here, there is another section that can be cleared out for more.

Then, at some point, we’ll take all the old paint cans and mystery liquids to the landfill for proper disposal, and the batteries will be taken to a scrap yard to be sold for their lead, along with the bags of aluminum.

By the time all this was done, it was almost evening. There were still loaves of bread rising, with some in the oven, so no one had been able to start supper.

My husband was a sweetheart and ordered pizza! I didn’t mind the trip into town to pick it up. Since I’ll be going into town again tomorrow, to pick up prescription refills, it gave me the opportunity to park the van in front of the house. That way, I won’t have to walk through the lake of melt water to get to the garage!

Hhhhmmm… That pizza is really hitting the spot! <3

The Re-Farmer

Shelving it

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During our trip to the city, I was able to pick up a couple of cheap plastic utility shelves for the old basement. Due to lack of space with all our other shopping, I ended up getting one at Costco and one at Walmart. They were the same size and type, but different brands.

Today, I wanted to start setting them up and grabbed the one from Walmart.

The basement stairs are steep with narrow treads, so I tried sliding it down the stairs in front of me. Like an idiot. This set of shelves were held together with nothing but a single strap (the Costco shelves were shrink wrapped). One of the shelves came loose form the others, and the next thing I knew, I was balancing precariously at the top of the stairs, one shelf in my hand, the rest almost at the bottom of the stairs, no way to close the door behind me, and a sudden crowd of cats wanting to check out the sudden stream of blue language.

Thankfully, my husband was able to rescue me. All I really needed was for him to keep the cats away and close the door.

I look forward to when the basements are safe enough that we don’t have to worry about them getting down there.

I decided the other shelf could wait until I was done with this one.

Both of these are 5 shelves tall. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t fit at that height.

I was right.

Even if that support was all the way in (I had to use the flat side of a hammer to get the others in), it would still be too tall.

Which is fine. Four shelves is good enough.

I focused on replacing the sorter shelf, with its many glass jars, first, since it was the most unstable.

A perfect fit! Except…

My apologies for the out of focus picture, but you can see how much space is under the leg, when I leveled the shelf.

So I needed to put something thin under the front legs, while still staying away from wood or metal. What did we have that I could use?

I started looking around in the new part basement when I remembered the stack of old floor tiles I’d moved from the bottom of one of the shelves while cleaning up.

Perfect!

Nice and stable, too. The other leg ended up needing a couple more tiles than this one.

That floor is remarkably uneven!

It didn’t make sense to put all those filthy jars back into the nice new shelf, so I made use of the old laundry sink.

In between soaking and washing batches of jars, I got my husband to bring over the other shelf.

Which was much, much easier to get down the stairs. Amazing what a difference a bit of shrink wrap can make!

Once I got it open, however, and starting looking between the shelves for the parts and pieces, something seemed… off. There seemed to be an awful lot of supports in there. And what was that, stuck under one of the shelves? That’s an odd shape…

So, according to the part list, there should have been 4 top caps, 4 legs, 16 support poles, 5 shelves and 3 wall brackets.

There were 5 shelves, 20 support poles, no top caps, no legs, no wall brackets, and 2… whatever those things are in the picture. I think they’re legs from a completely different style of shelf.

Well, I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I may not have legs, but I still have bricks!

I also used more of those tiles to level the shelf at the front.

I found an email address on the information sheet for this company’s customer service department, so I’ll email them about the parts issue later. This Costco one was a tiny bit more expensive (worth it, just for the shrink wrap!), but also seems to be a higher quality, too. I want to get more of these, and would get more Costco ones, if I had to choose, but not if they’re all messed up like this! :-D

Here is a before and after.

Cleaning the jars gave me a chance to look for chips, and I did end up taking out about 5 large canning jars and another 4 or 5 quart sized ones. Some of the ones I kept did have teeny chips I could just barely feel, but these will never be used for food again, so I was okay with keeping them. The ones with larger chips have the potential to cut someone, so I will probably find a way to use them for something else, where it won’t be an issue. Like bottle bricks.

As we start going through the collection of bottles in the new part basement, we’ll add more to the ones being set aside here, for potential use as bottle bricks. There are also lots more jars in the old kitchen that will come down here, so more of these shelves will be needed just for those.

The wooden shelves will be moved into the new part basement and put into use there, since we don’t have to worry about the wood getting wet in there.

A nice little bit of progress down there for the day. :-) I’m quite happy with it!

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: old hot water tank

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Today, it was back to the old basement to finally do something about the old hot water tank that died on us, shortly after we moved here.

A job that didn’t go as well as I’d hoped in some ways, while better than I hoped in others! :-D

Here is the state of the tank, before I started.

You can see that the bottom of the tank is quite rusted out and falling apart. The top, however, is still quite secure. It’s held in place by 4 screws, so I thought I’d try to take those off, first.

The first challenge was to figure out what type of screwdriver to use. They were so full of grit, I at first thought I’d need a star tip, but after digging some crud out with the tip of a box cutter, I discovered they needed a square tip.

Not that it mattered. The screws immediately stripped, as soon as I tried to loosen them. They weren’t going to move.

I was able to get the access panels on the side off easily enough, since they were barely put back on before the tank was moved.

I should note that yes, I was wearing safety gear before I started.

The bottom came off quite easily, and all sorts of rotted insulation and rust started to fall out!

I had a box ready for the smaller pieces of metal, and garbage bags for the insulation. I was using the old ash shovel as a dust pan as I swept up the smaller stuff, trying as much as possible not to kick dust up. Impossible, of course, but I could at least minimize it a bit, and using a shovel for a dust pan gave me a bit of distance as I worked.

Then, I took out insulation through the access panels. It wasn’t as rotten, higher up, but still…

… lots of rust on there!

I then had a couple of problems to work around. The screws on the top weren’t going to come out. I even tried a crow bar, but couldn’t get the leverage. The tank has a seam that I hoped to pop open, but that was more solid than the rest of the tank. Even if I opened it, though, it would hang up on the drain pipe near the base.

Then I remembered something.

In my late brother’s work shop, which we are now using to store all my parents’ stuff as we clear out the house, we found a pair of cutters. My oldest bother spotted them and told me they were sheet metal cutters. So I brought it to the house, and my husband sharpened them (they really needed a sharpening!).

They cut through the metal beautifully!

Cutting where the access panel openings where made it much easier. I also cut to the drain pipe so the metal could be pulled up around it, as well as going as close to one of the screws in the top panel as I could.

After yanking on it a bit, the outer shell panel broke free from the top cap and the whole thing popped open!

So. That’s what it looks like on the inside!

The next while was spent removing more insulation, taking off the springs that held the bands in place, and pulling out some of the wiring. I was also able to basically tear off the cap without any extra cutting near the screws. The metal of the shell tore pretty easily at the screws, once it started to open up.

In the process, I discovered a problem.

That cylinder is where all the weight is – and as I manhandled it, I could hear water sloshing inside! Yes, we let it drain before it was removed, but there’s no way to get all of it out completely, without cracking it open somehow.

This thing is heavy, and I needed to get the stuff out from under it. There wasn’t a lot of space to work in, either. (You can see the box with the new well pump waiting to be installed, and the jug of water that was intended to be used to prime the pump after installation.)

The first thing to do was clean up as much of the insulation as I could, then try and get the bands out from under it. I was able to get the bottom band out, a little at a time, but would not be able to do the same at the top. I had somewhere to grip and lift the bottom, but nothing to grip at the top. The obvious solution would have been to stand the cylinder up and move it off the shell, but there was simply no way to safely grasp the rounded top and lift that much weight.

I might not be able to stand it up, but thanks to that very strong drain pipe at the bottom, I could drag it!

And this is as far as it’s going to get for now!

I honestly don’t know how we’re going to safely get it out of the house. I had hoped that taking it apart would reduce the weight more than it did, but I probably took of maybe 10 pounds of material, in total. That’s barely noticeable.

As for the shell…

I could now remove the top band and use the shovel and broom to get rid of the majority of the insulation that had been crushed under the cylinder.

Then, I folded it.

And squished it.

Into a nice, flat pancake that could easily be moved.

It was very satisfying! :-D

The parts and pieces will be taken outside through the new part basement, with its safer stairs that are right next to the entryway door! But not until more of the snow has melted and we can reach the junk pile.

Next, I had to carefully clean up the dust and rust underneath. I wanted to make sure as little as possible could end up washed into the sump pump reservoir. I do NOT want this stuff clogging up the pump!

In the end, I used a wet mop to pick up as much as I could, because sweeping was just kicking up way too much dust.

I am so glad I was able to find these thicker masks at the pharmacy, before everyone went crazy and bought them all up. This is actually my second mask. One of the elastics broke on the first one. I have no more. I do still have some dust masks I’d found in the hardware store, but they’re not as thick as these ones.

Once I finished cleaning up the mess in the basement, I proceeded to take a shower, then put my clothes in the wash. Fiberglass insulation dust can be dangerous stuff. Especially when it’s as old and rotted out as this stuff was. When it comes time to take the garbage bags of insulation to the dump, I’ll have to make sure to keep them separate, so they go to the proper disposal area, and not with household garbage. I’ll also have to double bag them.

For now, I’m glad that the space in front of the pumps and tanks is finally clear of this thing. It’s been there for over 2 years! :-D It’ll make it much easier for when the well pump gets replaced.

I’m looking into finding a filter to install between the well and the pump. Or pre-filter, these are apparently called. I’ve found several kinds, but I can’t tell if they are suitable for use with a deep well pump, rather than a shallower well pump. The problem is that the deep well pump has two hoses, one above the other. From the looks of how they are installed, the second hose would be in the way. It would be good to use one, though. They are designed just to filter out the bigger stuff, and should help extend the life of the pumps and tanks. I’ve sent some links to my older brother, who knows this system better than anyone, and hopefully he’ll be able to tell me something, one way or the other. Or, perhaps, inform me of something better to use.

At this point, I’ve done almost as much as can be done in the old basement. The other things that need doing are little things, like getting plastic utility shelves to replace the wood shelves on bricks, and organizing.

Which means we will now work on the new part basement.

Oh, that reminds me. I was chatting with my brother about the clean up I’d done so far, and commented on the collection of car batteries down there. I said that, unless he knows if any of them are still usable and he wants them, I would probably take them to the dump for proper disposal. He very adamantly told me not to do that. It turns out that these can be taken to a scrap yard, in the same way we plan to do with our aluminum collection. They will pay by the pound for the lead in them, and each battery can bring in quite a lot. He tells me that the amount of aluminum we have is probably enough to make it work taking in.

I figure we can do that in the spring. Anything we get from the aluminum or the batteries is going to go into a tax free savings account we set up for our contingency fund, and the money will go to replacing the roof.

It’ll take a while. Based on the two estimates we got, and assuming that they will find rot under there, we’re looking at $10,000 we have to come up with. Assuming no emergencies happen before then. :-(

Ah, well. For now, we just deal with what we can.

Like figuring out how to get that beast of a cylinder out of the basement!

The Re-Farmer

Clean Up: old basement progress

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I was able to get a few more hours working on the old basement today.

Honestly, I should probably be using those hours doing housework, but that’s depressing. :-D Cleaning the basement may be really gross at times, but once it’s done, it’ll stay done for a very long time.

It’s a psychological thing. :-D

Today, I finally got to the water damaged shelf.

The containers at the bottom, with odds and ends in them, simply got moved to the other basement, to join the other stuff there we’ll need to sort through and figure out what to do with. That big plant pot will hopefully be big enough to transplant our umbrella tree into. I just have to find a drip tray for it, though the umbrella tree will likely spend the summer outside again, so I’ve got time for that.

Through the shelf, peaking from behind the chimney that used to be hooked up to the old wood burning furnace, is a really big baking pan. Too big to fit in the oven, so I don’t know why it’s here. I later cleaned it up and set it aside. I’ll be using it as a tray for when we start seeds indoors.

Dismantling the shelf was certainly interesting. Just look at the size of those nails! (In case you can’t make them out, they’re about 4 inches long, and those were what held the shelves to the sides.) For part of it, I ended up using a big flat head screwdriver to pry pieces apart. I had thought that some of the boards might be salvageable, but… nope. This will all go to the burn pile.

That shopping cart came in handy. :-D

Yay! It’s done!

That extension cord plugged into the outlet goes up through the floor, and into the master bedroom, along with a TV cable. There’s no longer a TV there, but the extension cord still comes in handy!

When we’re finally able to renovate, this chimney is what I want to have removed and replaced with a dumbwaiter. :-) That will make it so much easier to move things from floor to floor!

With the space opened up, I though I might set up a table here. Some time ago, I’d noticed a sturdy looking wooden table top leaning against the wall just on the other side of the opening to the new part basement. No sign of any legs, though. While I was clearing things in the new basement, I found – along with the hand pump and other things I uncovered – a set of legs that looked like they might belong to this table top.

So I brought them over.

They were, of course, extremely dusty, so I gave all the pieces a good cleaning. This table is clearly home made. I’m thinking it may have been made by my late brother. He did have a wood lathe and could have turned those legs himself.

Unfortunately…

The holes the legs were meant to fit into had crud in them. Only one of them was clear. These two were the worst. I was able to scrape most of the glue and residue out with a utility knife, but that was it for now.

So the legs were definitely made for this table, and the ends would normally have fit into the openings. With all the crud in there, they wouldn’t go all the way in.

I decided to set it up, anyway, in a different area.

I lured my daughter away from some commission work to give me a hand in setting it up on bricks, to protect from any future flooding. (The water on the floor was from the still wet table top and legs.)

I just had to set up my mother’s “thou shalt not steal” sign. Too funny!

Once it was set up, I hammered the table top down, using a piece of scrap wood to protect the surface, to try and get those legs into the openings as much as possible. They barely moved! Which meant that this is a very, very wobbly table.

Just to be on the safe side, because I KNOW I’ll forget and lean on it or something, I made up a warning sign. :-D

After this, I was able to start working on the other side of the basement.

There isn’t a lot that has been added to the space, but it’s big stuff, so it’s filling up fast!

The remains of a wooden chair got pulled apart (the legs were already falling off!) and added to the shopping cart with the rotten shelf pieces. The garden hose we’d used to help clear the access pipe to the septic tank got rolled up into a 5 gallon bucket I’d found, so it’s all nice and neat and tucked away. In one of the pictures, you can see some hoses behind what looks like black pool noodles. Those are old aquarium hoses. I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to use them again, since I’ve not been able to find a source to replace a broken hose connector for the filter of our big aquarium. Still, just in case, I cleaned them up, then found another bucket I could roll them up into. I even found a lid to keep the dust off them.

Here is how it looks now. When shifting the broken hot water tank, to move out the box the new one came in, I discovered there was still water in it that had started to drain. So that got moved over the drain trough next to the old hot water tank we replaced shortly after moving here. The next time I work down here, it will be to dismantle at least that one tank, as it’s way too heavy to haul up the stairs as it is. The newer broken tank is pretty light, so it might be easier to take it outside as is. I still want to dismantle it. I would really love to see if I can tell why it broke after only about 2 years.

There is still stuff that needs to be sorted through, but that is for another time. Of course, there are always odd finds. There were so many buckets of various sizes, but only one had a lid on it. Given what I’ve been finding elsewhere, I feared it might have something else for the special disposal pile.

Nope. Just this.

No clue what these are for, but I assume they were cut to size and kept protected in the bucket for a reason, so I’m leaving them until I can ask my brother if he knows what they’re for. There were a few other little things that joined the collection of rotted wood in the shopping cart, and one thing that was definitely a keeper. The temporary grave marker used for my late brother until the memorial stone was installed a year later. It’s just a simple board cut into a cross at the top, with my brother’s name and dates engraved on a little brass plate. It’s got some moisture damage on it, but that’s likely from the year it spent outside than any damage here in the basement. My oldest brother made it, and I definitely don’t want to loose track of it.

I’m rather pleased with the progress made today.

Hhhmmm. I suddenly can’t remember if I turned one of the lights off. One last trip to the basement, and I’m done for the next while! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Clean Up: both basements, progress and things we find!

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So while my wonderful daughters were making brownies, I headed to the basements to continue with some organizing and cleaning.

In the process, I found some very cool things!

The first thing I found was among a pile of glass jars I sorted through.

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