I’ve made quite a bit of progress on my old basement workshop. I’ve used the local Buy Nothing Facebook group heavily and really like it. In case you haven’t heard of the Buy Nothing Project, take a look at their website at buy nothing project.org. From what I’ve seen, our local group is mainly people giving away things they don’t use anymore, but the project goals include borrowing, lending, sharing, and expressing gratitude. I gave away a couple things that were difficult for me. You may remember, I really like coffee and I have about five ways to make it at home. One thing I had in my basement was an old stainless steel stovetop percolator. I loved it and it made great coffee. I couldn’t remember the last time I used it. I also gave away an old Igloo cooler. I remember who gave it to me and the occasion, but we have another cooler just like it. In fact, I had no idea how many coolers we had. I found enough parts to install two 4-foot shelves in the furnace room. I quickly filled the top shelf with small coolers and had to put a couple on the next shelf. Putting them all one one shelf let me see just how many we had. We will give away a couple more yet, but we haven’t decided which ones. Some other random items I gave away on the Buy Nothing Facebook group include a cordless drill, a bicycle pulley storage thing, some plumbing supplies, a torque wrench, a computer monitor, and two large stock pots. These were just items from the workshop and the adjoining furnace room. We have given away other items too boring to mention. I moved the table-saw out to the garage, broke down more cardboard boxes than anyone should ever have on hand, and I took a couple boxes of electronics to a local recycling facility. I took all of the old cans of paint to the garage where I mixed them with cat litter. Once those harden, they can be disposed of with the regular trash. I still have tool boxes on the floor but I have a whole wall that is empty right now where I plan to put a storage cabinet. Then I can tear out the old shelves on one wall and I will move a couple desks in there. I intend it to be more of a crafting and part-time office area, and not much of a workshop. I've already worked a few times in this room by setting up one of our portable desks for a few hours. Aside from cleaning up a messy room and decluttering a lot of things I don’t use, there have been several other benefits to this project. First, I hope the things I’ve given away on the Buy Nothing Facebook group have made a few people happy. Second, this has been a project to work on with my oldest son. He’s helped me with quite a bit of it and has spent time lately scraping off the old floor tiles. He’s also going to help me remove the remaining ceiling tiles and redo all of the wiring in that room. This project is on hold for the moment while we finish the ceiling in our office. We’re replacing the old tiles in the drop ceiling and installing new LED light fixtures. That’s nearly done and then we can get back to the basement. In the meantime, here are a couple pictures of our progress downstairs. |
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