Nasty Cellar Reno

I'm back from a two year long hiatus. I've been busy with my 9 to 5, night job, and the birth of my first child. Although I haven't been writing I've still been Renovating on the Cheap.

The cellar at Halsey Street was the ugliest, nastiest, mustiest cellar I've ever seen. It was cut up into four rooms. We think the previous owner probably had people living down there.

I spent two years planning how I could make this cellar usable. Prior to the demo I couldn't stand going down there. Everytime I did, I felt like puking.

The previous owners made it into some kind of a drug den or boom boom room. They added cinder block walls which divided the cellar into four rooms. This included a bathroom and a boiler room. One of the rooms was carpeted.

The cellar was dark and there were exposed wires and bx cables hanging from the ceiling. The walls were covered with sheetrock, which took away a few feet from the width.

Once we removed all the cinder block partitions, the fire proof door at the bottom of the stairs; the cellar looked much better. It still looked dingy and small.

To make the cellar look more spacious we painted the walls bright white and the sewer lines a glossy black.

We desposed of over 250 bags of rubble while doing this job.

Plan:
-Demolish the cinder block walls.
-Remove sheetrock from walls
-Remove illegal bathroom
-Paint walls, sewer and gas lines
-Sheetrock and plaster ceilings
-Remove exposed electrical wires and bring them up to code.

Tools Used:
-Hammer
-Crow bar
-Drill
-Saw Zaw

Materials:
-5 Gallon drum of primer
-5 Gallon drum of white paint
-Two gallons of black paint

Cost: $1500

Time: One week