The Basement Project: The Pantry
So just what is the room under a porch called anyway? The previous owners of my house called it a pantry (and had it labeled as such on the electrical panel). Most people refer to it as a fruit cellar, or sometimes a root cellar. Whatever you decide to call it, in my case you could call it a money pit, but that was my own fault for cutting corners. More on that in a minute.
When I first moved into the house, the pantry was quite an ugly room, with a rickety old shelving unit and little else. The previous owner used the room for storing his homemade wine. I used it for a couple of years to store junk. When I was in middle of the basement remodel, I thought about other potential uses for this area.
The room measures about 5-1/2 feet by about 20 feet, which adds some substantial square footage to a small house. Essentially it has two rooms, the smaller room measuring about 3-1/2 feet by 5-1/2 feet. My wife and I are both pack rats and together we have about 10 large plastic storage containers full of "stuff" which were taking up room in several closets. The smaller room of the pantry is a perfect area to keep these containers. The rest of the pantry is an adequate size for storage shelving, a small workbench for minor household projects, and even a mid size chest freezer.
This room was already waterproofed and I saw no evidence of any moisture problem (metal tools had not rusted after being stored in there for four years), so I figured that I would be able to get off relatively cheap.
The First Attempt
I fastened 1x2 strapping to the block using tapcons, and installed rigid polystyrene insulation between the 1x2s using adhesive specifically designed for this application. I figured that using the smaller dimension strapping would save on floor space, and half inch insulation was better than what had been there (nothing). For the ceiling, I used 2x2s which were toe-nailed (with screws) into a 2x2 top plate which I had installed around the perimeter. Everything was covered with vapour barrier. For the walls, I used 1/4 inch OSB, figuring that it would be a lot cheaper than drywall. I had about 90% of the OSB hung when I discovered a large amount of condensation on the insulation side of the vapour barrier.
Basically the work that I had finished up to this point was for naught. I was unable to take the OSB or the insulation down cleanly, so this was money out the window. I didn't salvage any of the strapping either, since most of it had caulking (which I used to fill some of the gaps) and bits of insulation adhered to it. The condensation that I had noticed turned out to be the only area where there was a problem. The old waterproofing had flaked off.
I had a choice. I could either patch this one area with another waterproofing product and hope that it would solve all my problems, or I could remove the existing waterproofing and do the job right.
New and Improved
With the pantry gutted again, I set about removing the old waterproofing using a drill and wire wheel attachment, like I had done with the rest of the basement. This turned into a lot more work than I ever would have anticipated. The walls had been waterproofed and then painted. Where the paint had failed, the waterproofing was easy to remove. However, some of the waterproofing had failed before the walls were painted, and removing paint from the bare block was a chore and a half. I was only able to work for a maximum of four hours at a time, because the air would become so thick with dust that I would not be able to see or breathe well enough to keep working. I was fortunate that the pantry was separate from the rest of the house, accessed by only one door in the basement which was easily sealed off to prevent dust from accumulating throughout the house
I used a cheap drill, which died on me about a quarter of the way through the removal process. I ended up using two more cheap drills. I also used countless wire wheel attachments. A grinder with a paint remover attachment would have probably worked better and held up longer. Scraping the walls took the better part of a couple of months to complete. What was originally a one week project had now occupied my entire summer, and through my basement renovation way behind schedule.
Once the walls were scraped clean of waterproofing and paint, I patched any holes with a leak-stop cement product. Use rubber gloves if you work with this stuff, as it is a relatively potent irritant. After the cement cured, I applied two coats of waterproofing using brush. I was unable to find Xypex, which was the product that I had used for the rest of the basement. Instead, I used Drylok, which seems to be a good product as well. It contains Portland cement which bonds it to the existing concrete and a synthetic rubber which acts as the moisture barrier.
I upgraded my strapping material to 2x2's this time, and used fiberglass insulation which I separated into half-thicknesses which should yield a rating of R6, about the same as the half inch thick polystyrene, which was rated R5. Again, I used a vapour barrier and quarter inch sheets of OSB.
The OSB was prepped with two coats of primer and two topcoats of latex paint.
Hindsight being 20/20, I should have run a 12 gauge wire and installed an electric baseboard heater to keep this space warm. While electric heat is fairly expensive, it would not have taken much to keep this room warm, especially if I upgraded the framing material to 2x3s or 2x4s and increased the amount of insulation.
Installing the Floor
The existing floor was simply the concrete slab with a coat of paint on it. To prepare the optimum surface for peel and stick tiles, I laid roofing paper to act as a bit of a vapour barrier, and installed quarter inch thick underlay which I fastened directly to the slab using the shortest TapCons that I could find (between 25 and 30 per four by four sheet). The underlay was sealed with a latex flooring primer, and then the peel and stick tiles were laid. The end result is a floor that should remain in good shape for many years to come.
The Final Product
Lighting is supplied by a fluorescent fixture in the main room, while a pull chain fixture supplies light to the smaller storage area. There are also two electrical outlets in the room; one is on a dedicated circuit so it can be used for a freezer or other appliance.
A lockable storage cabinet provides a home for old paints.
An heavy duty shelving unit doubles as a light duty workbench.
And there is plenty of room for storage boxes and other items, thus freeing up space throughout the rest of the house.
