A Basement in the Lowcountry
The cleanout of LMV is an ongoing process. I thought when we finished going through the 2 feet of piled up rubbage in the upstairs and downstairs, we were through with the nasty stuff. (And because we are “Do It Yourselfers”, we combed every square inch of the cleanout ourselves--with gloves and masks. We were too afraid of trashing some buried treasure to just scoop and throw away everything, so we filtered through every single scrap.) But... then there's the basement!
Who knew in Eutawville, SC – the lowcountry – there’d be a house with a huge basement built in 1937!!! Well, this one has a basement and it was full of stuff too. First it was full of water. When the electricity was cut off, so was the sump pump and therefore, it filled with water and sat that way for many years. So Dwight started the draining process to see where the leaks were and to see what buried treasure (and critters) might be hidden there. Besides the enormous heating system, ductwork, insulation, and 2 huge laundry sinks, there were stacks and stacks of glassware and dishes on shelving units.
A basement full of water... and dishes!
The previous owner had planned to make the house into a bed and breakfast, so she had accumulated tons of serving pieces. Many of them were still in the rotted away boxes as evidenced by the squishy paper stuck between the dishes.
Dwight put the dishes in tubs and climbed the ladder out of the basement, since the stairs had rotted away, to haul them up for us to deal with. And now I’ve started the process of sorting and washing. Deciding what to keep and what to get rid of. There are Christmas dishes, Noritake china, Flute wear, stoneware, and tons of glassware and serving pieces. (I guess you could call me a little OCD...) I sort them into sets first, all the wine glasses in one tub, the crystal in one tub, the Christmas dishes in one tub, the punch bowl sets in one tub.
Then, because they’ve been buried in muddy water for years, my process starts with a tub of soaking water with bleach. It sits for about a week and then I transfer to a clean tub to scrub with a Magic Eraser before going into the dishwasher. Not sure I’ll ever finish this process!
Next, I get to decide which ones to keep for LMV and which ones to sell, or donate to charity. But that’s a decision for another day, since there’s no hurry to finish this – except my town neighbors are probably wondering what in the world is in all those blue tubs in my backyard!!