Braving the Basement

Today Seth and I started tackling a daunting project at the office...cleaning out the dungeon basement.  For those who don't know, our office is actually an old house, but it's a cute lil' old house.

And since the house is old, the basement is obviously an old basement.  Creaky stairs, low ceilings, bare light bulbs, exposed brick walls, crickets...you get the picture.  So even if there was nothing in the basement, it wouldn't be a place you'd want to spend any time.  But by the end of the school year, the basement is a disaster because it's full of random set design pieces and event supplies that we've acquired throughout the year, and after boxes and bins are pulled out and put back over and over again, everything is just a mess - it's embarrassing!  And this year the basement was in worse shape than ever, because we had lots of huge pieces of stage design stuff, and I'm not even kidding, about twenty 30 gallon trash bags full of water bottles, left over from this project.  I'd say about 90% of the floor was covered in stuff.  It was a nightmare!  We worked down there pretty much all day, and are mostly done with it.  Tomorrow I'll post before and after pictures, but this post is dedicated to some of the random things we found.  Some of it was old stuff left down there from whoever lived in the house before we acquired it, some of it was old stuff we put down there when we replaced it, and some of it was stuff that was supposed to be sold in a yard sale we had two summers ago!

A huge bin full of unused Wal Mart bags.

A little Cabbage Patch doll and a doll table.

An old metal medicine cabinet.

An old Pong game system, crazy!  Seth is taking this one home.

An old-school mailbox.  I'm assuming it was the one for the house.  I'm taking it home and cleaning it up and doing something crafty with it.

A wooden bunk bed ladder.   It was tucked up in the wooden slats under the floor boards, and I only knew what it was because of the little crooks in the top.  We used to have one just like it when I was little and Amanda and I had bunk beds.  I'm also taking this home and cleaning it up and doing something with it.

A old little blue bottle.  This came home with me too :)  It's crazy to think I've worked in this house for three years and had no idea that all of these treasures were right below me!

Also found but not pictured:

Lawn mower

Screen for the front door

Large inflatable elephant and hippopotamus

3 Christmas tree stands

Approximately 700 used candles from Christmas candlelight services

2 wooden model sailboats

5 mop/broom handles with no mop/broom head

Directions to tools/appliances purchased at least 10 years ago that we don't own

A sign that said "Gargantuan Yard Sale"

2 boxes of random pieces of China

 3 lamps from Ikea, unopened

Lots and lots of dust and cobwebs

And items that we knew were down there, but are still a little odd:

Mannequin named Johnny 

Snow machine

15 Christmas trees that we made out of cardboard and felt

Laundry detergent and fabric softener (there is no washer or dryer in the house)

2500 empty water bottles

Wooden wishing well

Overhead projector