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Basement Project #1 - Custom Storage Shelving

Phase One of the basement renovation is largely complete.

While the contractors finish up the drywall work, we've gotten a head start on some of our own projects. 

First up - shelving in the storage room. 

This is an extremely underrated project. 

Storage shelving has a major impact on our quality of life! Maybe more than any other aspect of this basement remodel. 

How, you ask? 


Well, our basement used to be, essentially, one large storage area. 

For the last month and a half, ALL of that stuff has been moved to the garage. Bins, toys, furniture - everything. 

Which means that we can only fit one car in the garage. 

Which means that my car is sitting outside. In -5 degree weather. Every day. 

I'm really, really looking forward to getting my garage spot back. 

But first, here's the current status on the basement remodel: it's looking good!
The storage room is behind that large door. 
Really, there's not much more for the contractors to do. 

The TV goes on the opposite wall.
They'll continue mudding the drywall joints, and sanding them smooth. That should take 2-3 more days, for a couple of hours each day. 

Yes, we have a pole in our living room area.
We have 2 load-bearing steel poles in the basement, which are already starting to annoy us.

They've always been there, so it's nothing new... it's just that when the rest of the basement looks so great, you notice the less-optimal aspects of the room.

And really, the pole in the living room area is fine. But the pole near the stairs is troublesome.

The pole is not QUITE close enough to the stairs be connected to the railing - but it's so close to the stairway that it becomes awkward. We'll come up with something.

Looking toward the bathroom. 
But back to the main event - the storage shelves. 

When we turned the basement steps 90 degrees, we gained a decent-sized storage room. (It's highlighted below).   
Storage Room is in tan.
It's big, but not enough to replace all of the storage room we lost while remodeling the basement. So it needs shelving.

And because this room has quite a few pipes and vents running through it (including our backflow preventer), we need to get a bit crafty and work with the available space.

Ultimately, we decided to place 2-foot deep shelves, in the following locations:
Proposed Shelves are in brown. 2' deep, 8' long. 
The shelves in front of the window will only be 3 feet high. It's also the future home of our Mac Mini Server

We had to leave some space on the back wall, where the pipes are located. (Unfortunately, that means those shelves will NOT be anchored to the wall.)

Home Depot ONLY carried pre-made shelf kits, which didn't fit our requirements at all.

Fortunately, Menards carries components for building custom storage shelves:


We purchased 11 of these shelving frames, and 60 feet of 2' wide, 3/4" depth plywood. All told, the lumber cost us $255. 

We could have saved some cash by going with OSB instead of plywood, or by going with 1/2" plywood instead of 3/4". 

But the difference in cost came to around $40 - and given that this is going to be a permanent install, it's probably best to go with the higher-quality materials.

The shelves will go in today, as soon as the drywall team leaves.

And... Done!

I'm just hoping that the (folded up) ping-pong table will still fit in the storage room after the shelves move in. It should - provided that the doors open OUT, instead of into the room.

It's pretty crowded in the storage room now - we actually decided to install fewer shelves than we'd anticipated.

But we should be able to start moving our possessions back into the basement starting today.        


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