The Ancient Basement–More Progress on the Shelf at the bottom of the stairs

So this project is moving WAY more slowly than I ever expected, but here we are. We have made more progress than it’s going to appear in the following photos.

So, what you can’t see from these photos is that the left and right walls are plumb and parallel (and that took a LOT of time.) The bottom of the shelf is level and REALLY well insulated. The ceiling of the unit is also level. Because we made the unit a little deeper than we originally planned, we ran out of planks for the side walls, which is why they aren’t fully complete. BUT, everything that is installed has been painted with the top coat, and there are few tiny places that I will have to touch up, but not much–and after ONLY one coat. Love that so much!

These are the remaining beadboard planks for the walls. I have painted the tongues of them so that we won’t have the white showing once they are installed. It is incredibly difficult to paint those once they are installed.

We put together this shelving unit that we had taken down because we didn’t need it anymore so that we could use it as a drying rack for the shelf boards. These boards have 2 coats of primer on both sides. It’s supposed to be warmer the middle of this coming week, so I will take them outside and sand them. The dust from sanding these is akin to the dust you get from sanding drywall and it gets EVERYWHERE which is why I am waiting to sand them until it’s warm enough to do it outside.

My husband has prepped all the pieces for the face frame of the shelving unit and here they are. (Most of them are here, but there are others under the beadboard planks too.) They don’t look like much, but he has everything sketched up and the face frame will be pretty quick to assemble. Once it is assembled, I will prime it with 2 coats and sand it. I won’t put the top coat on until it’s installed.

So, what’s slowing us down? Well, the top coat paint dries really hard, but it takes about 3 weeks for it to fully cure and not feel tacky. We learned that from the mudroom wall which was super shiny and also tacky until about a week after the holidays (about 3 weeks from when the last coat of paint was applied). With that in mind, we are hesitant to work with any pieces that haven’t been drying for at least a week, because they are really pretty sticky for at least that long. Fortunately, the basement is really warm because we have had a fire going in the wood stove for weeks because it’s been so incredibly cold here. So the basement is nice and warm, and the air down there is DRY–both factors aid in paint drying.

Next steps are for me to finish priming all the shelves–doing two coats (one coat brushing in one direction and the next coat in the other direction)–and then sanding everything smooth with 150 grit sandpaper. Then I will vacuum and tack cloth the shelves and put the top coat on one side of the boards and let them dry for a week. (I really wish I could sand them today, but it is just too cold to be out there doing that.)

While we are waiting for the shelf boards to dry, my husband is going to make molding that will be the brackets for the shelf boards to sit on. We’ll install the rest of the beadboard planks and get them painted. After a few days, we’ll install the brackets and get those painted. Then we’ll assemble the face frame and fill the nail holes, prime it, and sand it. Once the walls and brackets and the shelf boards are dry, we’ll trim the shelf boards to the final width (currently they are wider than necessary). I will paint the back half of the top of them, and then we will put them in place. As we put the shelves in place, I will paint the front halves of them. Then we’ll have to wait several days again and we’ll install the face frame, fill the nail holes, and paint it.

Then the hardest part of all will be waiting 3 more weeks to put all the stuff on the shelves–just to be sure that everything is really good and dry. This will get that much more stuff put away and out of the storage room–which is a good thing because that’s where my husband’s office and a much smaller storage room are going to be.

Eventually, there will be crown molding across the top, and baseboard across the bottom, but we won’t do that until we’re installing it in the whole room.

Honestly, it makes me a little tired thinking about it, but we have to keep making progress if we want it to be finished by the holidays this year.