lary. We had a living room with wood-burning fireplace, dining room, kitchen, three bedrooms, ONE bathroom, full-size third floor and basement, and a detached garage. It was rather small, so we needed all the space we could gather. I eventually made the third floor into a bedroom for our two sons and added a bathroom up there for them. I also made the basement into a family room so we could enjoy TV and the children could play with toys so our living room would not contain all the clutter that goes with children's activities. The basement had a poured cement floor so I glued 1"x 1" wooden strips to the floor and put Styrofoam insulation between the strips. Put 1/2" plywood on top of that for the floor. We had a hot-water, oil heat system so there were pipes that lined the ceiling of the basement. I removed the asbestos insulation from the pipes so the basement would remain warm, and it worked nicely. I made a room, using 2" x 4" studs, at the bottom of our steps and covered the studs with walnut grained plywood. The dropped ceiling was 2' x 4' tiles. Around the sides of the room were spaces for: (1) my home darkroom, which I used to make prints for the high school yearbook and to make samples for my lessons for my photography class, (2) the heating oil tank, (3) oil burner which had a hot water heater built into it, (4) laundry sinks sitting next to a washing machine and dryer, (5) the house's electrical panel, (6) my work table, (7) storage, and (8) a small hole in the wall that connected our house to our neighbor's house which used the common wall in the semi-detached house. OK so far? The darkroom was very light-tight, but since it wasn't near the laundry sinks, I had to transport water with a bucket to the darkroom for developing the photos and film. I had quite a few safelights rigged to the ceiling for light to work by. Now, to the hole in the wall. When we moved to the house, after the first pouring rain, we noticed water running from the wall to the drain in the rear of the basement. Evidently water would come in from somewhere in the rear of the house, fill the openings in the interior of the cement blocks, until the water was high enough to come thorough the hole in our wall, which was about the size of a pencil. Would shoot water about two feet through the air from about three feet off the ground till it landed on our basement floor. So, I made a special 1/4" drill bit that had a foot long shank and drilled the hole the entire way through to the neighbor's basement. I them filled the hole in my basement with caulking and 'viola',
the water was redirected! End of that story. My work bench was used for general household repairs, much like the workbench that my dad had built at 929 N. Queen St. My kids learned about electrical repairs, building with wood and metal, and small appliance repair at that bench. They now have work benches of their own at their homes for the same purpose. I built a TV console in a wood shop class at Millersville State Teacher's College for the family room which held the TV, tape player and other junk which accumulated in the basement. We had one sofa for lounging and another that we called "Arnold's sofa" which belonged to our dog. He liked to hump the arms of it and chewed almost every corner of the cushions. I would grab the needle and thread and restitch them, then he would do it again. they looked terrible, but it was a great conversation piece. Arnold also liked to work with us at the workbench and when he closed the door leading from the "finished" part of the basement to the rear part where the workbench was located, he at times would try to scratch his way under the door. The floor of the family room was covered with orange shag carpet I purchased from my friend Barry who helped his father run a carpet store. Arnold, with his scratching to get through the door, at times ruined the carpet under the door. I had some remnant scraps from the orange shag carpet, but eventually ran out of them so I moved the cedar chest which was at the rear of the family room, cut a piece of carpet from under it, replaced the cedar chest, and used the cut piece to repair the dog damage. Actually, when we moved there were pieces cut from under both sofas as well as the cedar chest. That pretty much covers our basement EXCEPT ........... the laundry chute. Yep, we had a chute that went from the second floor to the basement. Eliminated the need for a clothes hamper in the only bathroom we had. Take off your dirty clothes and drop them in the chute. The chute also had an opening in the kitchen, but when I renovated the kitchen, I covered it with a cabinet. At times the chute would get jammed with items such as sheets or towels and I would have to open the door in the basement and use a long, collapsible rod to un-jam the chute. Pretty neat and a real good selling point when we moved. It kind of made of for all the holes in the carpet in the basement. Well, everyone probably has a few tales to tell about the special parts of their house that they don't share with visitors, and you now have heard mine. In the "Beach House," where we now live, we don't have a basement. It is open to our first floor and we call it our lower level. Pretty neat, huh. But there are still tales to tell about the lower level, and luckily you don't have to hear them now. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.To use for placement; not to scale.
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