Progress with the Elephant

Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees.  Same thing goes when you are eating an elephant.  Sometimes you do not appreciate the progress until you really look back at where you started.

Since my son, Rob, is planning to come out in September for a week to help me finish this room, I headed to the basement with my IPad just before I headed to the airport to visit Rob and his wife, Kate, in Alaska.  I grabbed a couple of pictures so he could see what the room looked like and what my plans were.

I have posted a couple of pictures of after I had started eating the elephant, so I thought I would show you all what the space looked like in the middle of June.

It is not the best picture... I was in a hurry and the light was not good.  I am standing about two-thirds of the way in the room, looking towards the street-side of the house.  All of the big tools are in the foreground.  You can also see the weight-lifting bench..  The white table is a cutting table that will remain in the room along with the small wood table that is an actual sewing machine table, which will also remain in the room.  There is a work bench on the right-side, just out of view and other junk piled after the man came to buy the planes.

Now, the elephant has been nibbled on and this is the result.  Danny and Darren had come to remove the tools.  Danny's grandson took the weight-bench and weights that you cannot see.  Then I was tasked with cleaning the workbench on the far wall... which I did... and then Danny and Darren came back to remove the work bench from the wall and then remove the wallboard so I could see what was behind the wallboard.  Since it is a basement, I expected moisture and mold and all kind of nasty stuff.  I expected to be spending the next several weeks treating mold and painting the cinder block with DriLock masonry paint.... but there was no moisture, no mold and Rudy had treated the walls before he covered them up.

So I just have to finish going through the remaining stuff on the other workbench and I am ready to put down a floor and bring in the sewing stuff!!!  By the time I head to the Outer Banks for the retreat in October I will have a 10 by 30 foot sewing and craft room!!  Yippee!!!

You can see stains where water used to come in, but I took pictures on a day when we had lots of rain and it was dry.

Under the workbench.  No mold, no water, and no need to paint. 

Removed the unsupported end of the workbench.  This is the space where the white cutting table will be found once the wallboard is replaced and painted.

We had a piece of nicer wood that will replace the shelf that was taken out below the bench.  It will be a good place for project storage bins.

The brown cabinet was attached to the wall in the upper left-hand side.  Rudy had added a shelf inside.  It will also go back up for storage of small things.  The white cabinet in the wall on the right is a medicine cabinet that Rudy built into the wall.  It also will stay and probably house thread, needles, etc.  The pegboard will hold rulers and cutters and other items.  It is going to be such and awesome room.

I will also have a daybed in the room and a television.  This way, I can sleep there when I have extra company or if I just need a nap during the day!