The Man-Cave

So its clear that, as a man, I will have little say in how the house is decorated. I tried and failed and I yield to my wife as have many men before me. But I have found my place. That place is my basement. Initially I thought it was too sketchy to work in. I've removed wheelbarrow loads of dirt, broken glass, shoe inserts, 5.25 inch floppy disks, etc. Today I used a borrowed wet-vac to really get serious and I think I've reduced it to merely dirty instead of post-apocalyptic.

In any event, there's serious potential down there for a wood shop, but there's more than that. There's potential for a ManCave. If you follow these misadventures you'll see what I mean. For example, soon I'll be adding a screen door. A what you ask? Yeah, a screen door, so that I can sit in my ManCave with other Men and drink beers and not get bitten by bugs. Its important to have the air flow in this basement as it creates a more pleasant environment and what makes more sense than a screen door.

In any event, here are a couple of hold overs from Wilbur that I need to turn my attention to this week as I'm in the mood for some concrete work.

(1) Filling random holes:





I'm not real sure what these are, but I can't think of any reason to keep them.

(2) Stairway to heaven



So notice that there is a 'step' of sorts. Its hard to explain in words what we filled in and covered up with some extra concrete. But it was yucky. Notice that above that step there is some other yucky stuff. Some of it is loose, so I figure I'll form up a ways and pour another 'step' of sorts to clean it up. There's some loose dirt and I don't want to keep 'cleaning' as I don't know how far back it goes. This way I can create some bizarre concrete shapes that will have future owners wondering what the heck I was thinking.

(3) Continue the trench



If you click on the image its easier to see the trench cut into the floor. I cut that trench and while its no work of art it did what I wanted it to do, which is to reroute water directly towards the sump pump. The trench needs to extend further to the left in the image though. Ultimately I hope that several other projects of mine will eliminate the need for the trench, but in the meantime I'm containing the problem.

Speaking of the sump pump I took the wetvac to it today and cleaned out the hole which had all manner of rumble in it including pieces of tile, wood and concrete and plenty of muck.



Pretty isn't it!