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In case anyone was wondering why I haven’t posted about the husband’s clean up the crap filled cellar project lately, there’s a reason.
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And that reason is him getting bored and dropping it like a hot rock.
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Only a third of the ceiling was completed… and it was at that point I think he realized he was in over his head.
Literally and figuratively.
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So while there are areas you can see the floor….
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It’s still a junk filled nightmare.
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I stepped out of the shower the other morning to a bit of a racket. Getting dressed, I followed the sound to what can only be described as a miracle.
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The husband’s truck was full of boxes and bags that had been cluttering up a section of our cellar for years. It was his ‘yard sale I’ll never get around to having because I’d much rather shop at one than set one up’ pile. There were things I’d tried to get rid of, things his mother gave us, things his sister left after she moved out, things from my mother’s house after she passed, things we no longer needed, things we never needed.
There were lots and lots of things.
I’ve been trying to donate all those things to Salvation Army for years, but he always muttered ‘yard sale’ when I broached the subject.
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So here’s the miracle – my husband was getting his haircut last week when he heard a woman talking about a local charity rummage sale that was accepting donations. All the money raised would go to fund school trips for kids who otherwise couldn’t afford to go. A real no child left behind effort.
Apparently that’s what it took for my other half to relinquish his hold on the pile of things.
I eagerly jumped in to help before he changed his mind and we ended up donating 3 full truck loads.
Hallelujah!
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Beach glass and dishes? Sure.
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Baskets? Those too.
Though I’m glad I did a little sorting and cleaning before putting things in the truck.
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I doubt anyone wants to buy this guy.
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Another area of the crap mausoleum cellar is being cleared in preparation for work and there’s one extremely heavy item in the way.
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This time, I can’t even blame my husband.
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The rather odd looking wood stove was here when we moved in 21 years ago, and here it has stayed. We tried selling it at a yard sale years ago but there were no takers. I’m guessing if we ever sell our house? It will be our parting gift to the new owners as well. Why break tradition.
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Farther along there’s a large pile of tires. Do they… or did they ever…. fit one of our vehicles? No. But they’re resting on a nice fluffy piece of quilt stuffing so at least they’re comfortable.
🥴
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In keeping with the old, rusty, inoperable and weighs a ton theme? Another adding machine.
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Buried in the back.. next to the extra refrigerator we didn’t need but he bought anyway.. is a nice old toboggan. Why? Just because he could.
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Does the husband have a few old Life magazines?
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I’d like to tell you that’s all of them.
I really would.
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Looking back, the far right corner is done.
Not that you can see it through all the junk of course.
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Rusty old tools.
Magazines from the 1940’s.
Broken toys. Bottles.
Advertising ephemera.
Vintage fishing gear.
Among the other things my husband has been known to hoard? Food. More precisely… food that is near or past it’s expiration date and I’m threatening to throw out. When things disappear from the fridge? I assume he eats the items I have my eye on.
Turns out I’m wrong.
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I found these on a recent clean out of the man cave/ Barn Mahal. I go out there every so often to water succulents, dust, sweep and generally straighten. I don’t usually check the beer fridge but one random glance told me I had work to do.
Pepperoni that expired September of last year? Check.
Frozen egg rolls from June 2021? Check.
And yes, I actually dumped beer because it was types neither of us like with use by dates in 2020.
My husband grew up poor in a large family and hates to waste anything or throw things out. But while I understand his desire for thrift?
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Even he had a hard time arguing it was time to let go of this baggie of cheese slices.
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If you can still call it cheese at this point.
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The far right corner of the basement from Hell now has shelves.
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And useless crap things have started to be shelved.
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A closer look reveals a myriad of treasure well worth the hard dirty work and expense.
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What’s on that shelf?
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Saucers without teacups, teacups without saucers, glasses lifted from bar rooms, and a soup thermos with a hole in the bottom. If that isn’t worth the two thousand dollars he’s spent to date? I don’t know what is.
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Moving down the shelf, we have boxes of nails and screws and a Paymaster check embossing machine… which I might have to give a spin if this project continues.
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Around the bend… the next area to be cleaned (and hopefully emptied) contains a 3,000 ton ( I’m exaggerating but that’s how heavy it felt when I helped him move it down there years ago) scale complete with weights and a rusty old rag can filled with dirty old rags.
What is his emotional attachment to this crap? It’s been sitting there for decades.. unused, forgotten and collecting dust but he won’t part with it and gets cranky when I suggest it’s time to let go.
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Granted, every once in a while there’s something interesting. I pulled an old sheet off this antique radio precariously balanced on another can of rags. The dial spins you from one country to another. Early on line chatting?
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On the way back upstairs I saw that he’d raided my sandwich bags and hung numerous pieces of junk from the main beam.
If anyone needs a dry rotted plastic shuttlecock in its original packaging from the ‘70’s?
I’m your girl.
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My husband started a new project. One that isn’t on the honey do list, or even makes any sense as far as I’m concerned.
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But because he’s bored silly since the weather has turned and he can’t tinker outside? He decided our basement needed a ceiling.
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The area is neither heated nor finished…. so why he decided this, I don’t know.
What I do know is he’s thrown all my holiday decorating items into a giant pile and mixed the Xmas with the Thanksgiving and the Easter with the Halloween. Grrr…
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My little section of the basement was the only clean and organized part, so of course that’s the section he wanted to install a ceiling.
His part of the cellar still looks like this:
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Packed to the rafters with useless crap his treasure. (Please note my Christmas reindeer in the foreground. It did not have a broken, missing horn yesterday. 😠
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There used to be a path through this section but not anymore.
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This path now dead ends as well.
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The only remaining path to the stairs is starting to narrow as well. If he isn’t careful, he’s going to get trapped down there….
And at times? I think that might not be a bad thing.
🤣
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We found a very, how shall I say? ….unique antique store last week.
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It was an old Victorian house with elaborate overgrown gardens and more stuff than I have ever seen crammed into one place at one time.
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Yes, even more than my husband has in our basement. And trust me, that’s saying something.
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It was a veritable jam packed maze with room after room of … stuff.
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Advertised as an antique store, it was also filled with arts, crafts and assorted holiday decorations.
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I’m hoping the hand was for Halloween.
I really am.
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We had a long conversation with the owner who astoundingly told us it only took him 10 years to fill the place. Honestly? It could take a person that long just to go through it.
He also reiterated what my husband heard at the flea market. No one is buying. Anything. Lots of dealers are calling it quits.
Proof positive there is such a thing as too much stuff.
We discovered he lives upstairs and he told us that area is just as heavily populated with his personal collections. The mind boggles.
As we were leaving my husband said that made sense because he thought he saw a naked man on the balcony when we walked in.
Whaaat!
How do you not lead with that observation?
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My husband came home hot, tired and grumpy after his 14 hour long adventure at Todd’s Farm flea market in Massachusetts. (Why did he feel the need to travel two and half hours out of state to divest himself of treasure? Because we’d been there years ago and it was an impressive array of antiques with lots of wealthy buyers.) He had visions of selling everything for big bucks and coming home with an empty truck.
This did not happen, much to his… and most certainly my… chagrin.
From the start, the crowd was small. And those who were shopping didn’t seem to be buying.
Anything.
From anyone. The husband was set up next to a veteran antique dealer who agreed it was a horrible day. Interestingly enough, he also said it was a horrible week, month and year.
Wouldn’t you know it? Just when my crap collecting spouse finally decides to get rid of some crap… the crap market bottoms out. He spoke to a dozen dealers as well as a large cross section of pickers making the rounds and they all said the same thing. The secondary antique market in New England is sick, dying, and pretty much dead.
Don’t get me wrong, hubby managed to sell probably a quarter of what he took… but he didn’t get anywhere near the prices he asked, and was surprised that it was all the low end items that sold. The nice, unique pieces returned home with him.
As did the beast. That 200 lb monstrosity of a scale I had to help him move… again.
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And damn it, now it’s right alongside my car in the garage.
Husband was disappointed, but not quite ready to give up. He plans to try again at a flea market closer to home which is probably a good thing…. because since I refused to let all the crap back in the house, the table he set up to store it in front of the Harley is making parking in the garage a bit tight.
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He did surprise me with one item though.
The wicker love seat his sister left in our barn 12 years ago. She didn’t want it and told him to get rid of it over a decade ago.
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He finally did.
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There’s only one part of our house His Lordship is not allowed to enter and that’s the cellar. Naturally it’s the one place he’s dying to go.
Our cellar is a 2,000 square foot nightmare of my husband’s crap treasure. There’s so much stuff down there you can barely navigate the space. It’s dirty, covered in dust and cobwebs and has been known to house the occasional mouse. For this reason, I laid traps and poison bait blocks. And for that reason, it’s off limits to Dudley. I make sure the door is securely closed every single day.
My husband? Not so much. I continually warn him Lord Dudley Mountcatten is a clever beast and will pry open the door if it’s not shut properly. In typical male fashion he scoffs at my worry.
You know where this is going, right?
We came home from shopping the other day, after my spouse had been in the cellar that morning, to this:
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A cobweb and pink insulation covered cat standing close to the partially open cellar door.
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Who… me?
No, I didn’t go down to the off limits cellar. Why do you ask?
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I stepped outside to this a while back.
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Because when the husband disappears outside for long periods of time with no contact? I know something is being torn apart.
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This time it was the woodshed, which over the years has become an outdoor repository for everything I want to get rid of but he’s determined to keep. This includes a large amount of bricks, mismatched pavers and random blocks.
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Which he started stacking until he came across a batch of tapered arch building bricks left over from the previous owner. Yes, they’ve been there for 20 years because my spouse is a hoarder and you never know when you’ll need to build an arch.
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He moved them to front of our garage and I rejoiced, thinking the next step would be the dump. I was wrong.
After looking them up online and seeing that new tapered arch bricks sell for $6 a piece … he made me list them for sale. 40 (and 1/2 because he wouldn’t even throw out the broken one) used, dirty, slightly mortared bricks – $80.
It should come as no surprise that after 12 days we have had no offers.
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River's world..... 