What's In The Basement?

As promised, here are photos of What's In The Basement.

Number one, The Mysterious Deadbolted Room (which in the real estate listing was called a 'rumpus room'):

Exterior. Front of house is towards right of photo.

















View from the back door, facing the front of the house. Note little window to the rest of the garage.
















View from opposite direction, toward the back of the house. Note second little window to the rest of the garage.

The linoleum is likely from the 20's or 30's. Which is pretty cool, but also means it's probably asbestos. Hey, at least it's fireproof in there.

The calendar on the wall is from 1955.

The lighting is run on an ancient fuse box. The rest of the house is on the electrical system upgraded in 2007.








The doorway on the right is the back door of the Mysterious Deadbolted Room. It leads directly onto raised wooden flooring that we will eventually take out to do some earthquake retrofitting on that post right there. And also to make way for the air hockey table we have just been offered by a friend (!).

It's hard to see, but there is an old wooden workbench back there behind the ladder, with some neat old jars & (disconnected) electrical fixtures attached to it.








Now, how about a peek at what's under those back extensions?

Extension #1, the one with the kitchen:

Watch your step!

The grey ball on the steps is steel wool I was using to plug holes from old plumbing fixtures that go directly up into the kitchen. I just noticed that it kind of looks like an animal.













It's hard to see, but there is a hole in the middle of the floor, opening right to the dirt, under that cardboard box. Apparently this is how it was done when this was built -- sticks sitting on the dirt, without any real foundation, with a raised floor built on the dirt. I'm not sure when it was built, but there's an old (disconnected) outlet in the kitchen that looks like it's from the 40s or 50s.

The slats through the window at the back are part of the neighbor's fence. This window faces southwest -- I imagine this was actually pretty bright down here before they put that up.

I should have taken a photo of the left wall -- it's actually the original exterior of the house, redwood shingles and all.

It looks worse than it is in there because we haven't cleaned it out, but, yeah, there's work to be done here. The first big thing we are doing is bringing this up to modern standards structure-wise, & making it usable living space.


Extension #2, the sloping back porch:

Watch your head!

















This is the one with all the neat old stuff (& junk) in it. And the one that's coming off & being replaced with a deck as part of the structural work mentioned above.















Lastly, for now, one other thing that's in the garage:


Old bicycle pump. Fun.

The entire garage is walled with this reused lath, by the way. It's not a typical sort of thing to do in a garage out here -- someone just had all this used lath from somewhere, & nailed it up all over the walls & ceiling. It's nice looking.