jm51 wrote:It's going to be my new workshop. Damp, ugly and awkward access but better than my current 'shop in a bedroom' which is too small.
Sometimes all we can do is the best we can with what we have available.
I can still clearly see a fellow's basement that I was in back in the early 1970's that made a big impression on me. It was under a smallish house, also from about 1900. I was there to install a new washing machine that I had sold him. The ceiling was fairly low (or the floor was high
), the ceiling was just the open joist floor above and the walls were fairly rough concrete. The floor was especially rough as the concrete had chipped and flaked badly all over its surface. Like many such houses here the basement had been dug out after the house was built probably to make a home for the central heating that came later, often in the 1920's. The entry was only from the outside and was awkward and narrow. It was a bit of a hassle just getting the new washer down there without scratching it.
The guy collected and restored old pool tables. How he got them down there is beyond my comprehension... He had 4 or 5 in there at that time. Not like these modern things. These were the old fancy ones with big wide top rails and about a half ton of slate bed.
This guy had probably used about 100 gallons of paint in that basement. He had carefully painted the floor above and the joist and all of the bridging with numerous coats of white paint until it made a smooth surface on the old rough sawn wood just from paint build-up.
He had painted the rough concrete walls the same way but in a light green. That rough flaked off concrete floor must have had at least 20 coats of light gray floor enamel on it. When you walked in it was surprising just how nice and bright and nice looking it was. You only realized just how rough it was before he started and really was yet after a closer look.
It made quite an impression on me in the "silk purse out of a sow's ear" department.
BTW, that house was only one of many where I encountered a very ancient 30 amp electrical service which consisted of a small meter mounted on a small ceramic base that had two screw-in fuses (all connections out and open) with branches off to all over the house in very lightweight "knob & tube" wiring. In most cases branch lines were just "T" splices, some soldered, some not then taped with a little friction tape. Scary...
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