Boxes for storing canning jars

[saysfaa]

Progress but not done yet. I got close enough to done to start living with it to see what needs to be adjusted. Also, other things had been neglected long enough.

These boxes are mostly empty. That way, it is much easier to shift them around until I get a fit I like. That will help with cutting the plywood in the most useful way. At a minimum, it needs two approximately 4' wide x 23" deep sections of the main shelves. Subdividing the two middle shelves might be good; I'm less sure after trying boxes on the biggest piece of leftover piece of plywood. It may come down to whether I put jars straight on the shelf or put them in the boxes.

Yesterday, I took a can of paint in for shaking. It is for the rest of the braces, two of the 1x2 beams (furthest back - by the studs), and all of the end boards. I might leave the 2x4 beams white.

I still want to fiddle with the details - different end boards maybe, trimming, and so on.

 

[saysfaa]

Next project... getting the rest of the boxes off the basement floor. Preferably, in a way that makes them easily assessable and condensed so we have more open space in the basement.

Off the floor because I have lots of boxes of books, quite a few of fabric (clothes and linens and such as well as fabric for sewing). Both categories are beginning to smell a bit basementy. I think it is mostly because dampness wicks up through the cement floor.

And organized instead of downsized because we aren't planning to stay in this very small house for long. I don't want to replace things later.

 

[saysfaa]

I've seen people use foam insulation panels to keep boxes off cement floors. The local big box stores recently started stocking the 1" thick versions in 4'x8' sheets. That is more affordable than the 2" versions. It is still plastic, though.

An alternative is to build wooden racks.

• That could be simply laying a few studs down to set the boxes on.
• Adding a second tier (at least for the books)
• Putting casters under the bottom tier.

If I put casters under the bottom tier, I could get something that works like this

 

[saysfaa]

Meh. It is probably better to pull them out into a walkway along the ends of the stacks.

I think I have a source of casters. If not, I might look for an alternative - maybe a way to slide them easier than the whole stack along the floor.

 

[Sally PB]

And organized instead of downsized because we aren't planning to stay in this very small house for long. I don't want to replace things later.

Organizing usually leads to downsizing for me. I'll find I have more than one half full box of something, and I can combine them, saving some space.

Do you have a place (town/area) that you're looking at to move to?

 

[saysfaa]

Yes, I'll downsize as much as I can. All the easy stuff is gone as we went from a house that fit 8 people comfortably to an apartment with two big storage units to this house/garage and gradually stepped down the sizes/numbers of storage units. Then just the house and garage. Then cleared the garage.

Now it is, like, do I keep the grandkid things? On one hand, I don't have any grandkids. On the other hand, it seems silly to purge it just before some grandkids are born (probably) after keeping it for 10 to 25 years. It didn't matter when we had lots of storage space and might have another baby then expected grandkids within a few years. Theoretically, I could replace it but it has been thinned enough times already that what is left is both high value and hard to find.

No, we don't know where. Or when other than between a few months and a few years.

 

[saysfaa]

Hm. Maybe the side-to-side slider version isn't so far fetched. I know some libraries use tracks under the stacks.
Homemade railroaf

I don't need the engine; that seems to be the difficult part.

Or a working version rather than a toy
Irish version

Maybe it doesn't gain me much, though. I would still need wheels - that is the expensive part for me (if the potential source of casters doesn't pan out). It seems the main benefits of the rails (flat, stiff foundation for the wheels to run on) already exist with the concrete floor. I'll leave this here anyway because it is interesting.

 

[saysfaa]

Design considerations for trollies
Here for reference because I'm abandoning the trolley system plan for now.

Good news is finding 1/2" foam board insulation which was being carried until recently. $14 is much better than $30 somthing or $40 something and I want the vapor barrier, not the insulation. Then, a different store had it for under $12 and had sheets with a bit of crumple distortion on one corner of each sheet. They gave me $5 off each sheet for the damage. That makes it reasonable to put under the file cabinet, the sets of shelves, and the furniture as well as under the stacks of boxes.

If I'm shifting everything anyway. I may as well place it better. I'm finding graph paper layout of the basement and graph paper cutouts of the furniture, movable sets of shelves, and sets of boxes to be... frustrating (the builders did not put much thought into the usability of the basement) ... but hopefully the graphing will eventually be useful.

 

[saysfaa]

Also, I came across a recommendation of activated charcoal as part of managing storage in basements. It is sold for odor control in such spaces so is available at local stores in reasonable quantities at reasonable prices for this purpose.

There are directions for making your own for about a tenth the price but it isn't worth it to me at this point. Recharging it myself is more likely to be worth doing.

I hope this in addition to the insulation under things and better use of the box fans to circulate the air (and dehumidifier according to the humidity down there) will be enough to keep things in good condition.