Back to the elephant.....

I have returned to eating my elephant....

Over the last few weeks, Danny Lantz and his son, Darren, have been in my house and clearing out all of the wood working tools from the basement work room where my late husband made cabinet doors for my kitchen, created lovely items for friends and, in the long East Coast winters... built remote control planes that were beautiful to look at and fun to fly.  I sold the planes last fall.  I have decided, if I am not going to sell this house and move, I need to have a sewing/craft room.  So, I cam clearing out this space and re-purposing it for my sewing and quilting and crafting.

There is a workbench all long the back of the room.  It is attached to wallboard that lines that end of the room.  It is, after 25+ years of being on the wall, showing signs of dampness.  It is, after all, a basement!  The remainder of the walls have pegboard floor to ceiling.  I want to pull the workbench off the wall, cut off the section that is on the right-side and then remove the wallboard and see what the walls show after all of this time.  I want to spray with some bleach water to kill any mold that might be there, let it dry well and then paint the cinder blocks with DriLock masonry  paint to seal them from any dampness that might be coming in that way.  Then replace the walls with more pegboard.

This is the area as I found it today.  This rooms runs the entire length of the width of the house, so it is under my bedroom, the office and the storage room off the outer porch (it had once been a little screened porch, but was closed in during the Both Hands Project).  So it is a nice sized room.

This is looking the other way.  I took the first picture while sitting on the chair.  There is a door to the outside in the far corner, a window that faces the back of the house and two windows on the side.  So, there is some natural light.  The walls opposite the outside walls are also cinder block but they are interior walls.  I want to cover the larger areas with 'design walls' where I can layout quilt blocks to play with designs and colors.

This is the other workbench.  This was the area where the planes were built.  I am thinking that this bench will have to go.  I will put the other bench back up, place the cutting table in the area that we cut off.  I will cover it with either a standard counter top or laminate a counter on it, but I want the biggest area I can get for cutting mats.  I could leave the plane bench up, but I think I would rather have the room for tables and ironing boards.

I think it will make a nice space.  Rob is planning to come sometime in September to help get it finished.  I am hoping to have most of the prep work and even some finishing work done before he arrives.

I am looking forward to having a space just for sewing.  It will be a first as I always had to set up on dining room tables, both here and in Maryland.