How is the basement cleaning and improvement project going? By golly, I'm glad that you asked.

Overall, the progress is appreciable but the pace has been glacial.  At inception, I expected this project would last 6-months; to date I have been at it for a bit over 4-years.  There has been SOME notable progress; the stairs are now clean and clear; they no longer serve as de facto shelves for anything and everything. The areas around the (relatively new; year 2016) furnace and the (relatively new; year 2018) water-heater are clean and clear; both the foundation drainage pump and the sanitary drainage pump are relatively new (year 2018). The cement floor of the crawl space area that is just beyond the furnace is now clean and clear.  Lighting improvements down here have removed the dreariness factor.

Getting the temperature to stay up and the humidity to stay down took some doing.  You betcha, there has been SOME decent progress on SOME stuff but ...

When I retired I brought home a truckload of personal stuff that had accumulated in my offices over 3-decades. When Dad passed away I brought home some of the stuff that my brothers didn't want; a year later when Mom passed away I brought home even more.  Sorting through the minutia of it all will take the rest of my time on this earth.  

No less than a ton of stuff (no exaggeration) has already been tossed; I max out the garbage and recycle containers every week and have much more to go. Lots of scrubbing and vacuuming going on down here.

Just getting the shelves up (15-units so far and still room for a couple more) and getting the essentials, treasures, and sundry crap off of the floor has been a slow but steady process.  

To be honest, this project has been fun.  The basement is evolving into a comfortable (albeit ever-primitive) man-cave and storm-bunker.

 It is common knowledge that I've spent much of my lifetime being off of my rocker.

(A gift from Mom during her days of treasure hunting the estate sales.)

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