Excavating In My Own Home

Our house was built in 1920. It's a row home with original wood floors, awesome high ceilings on every level, and tons of character. I've lived here for 6 years, and in that time, I'll admit it, I've accrued a lot of junk. However, in the basement cellar, back where the washer and the dryer and the spiders and sprickets live, there's been a bunch of stuff that was there ever since I moved in. Shelving units, cabinets, TONS of paint cans, you name it. Over the years I'll admit I've contributed some closet doors, broken A/C units, a boxspring, ... until it eventually ended up looking like this:

Not much room to really walk, just the bare minimum path to the washer and the dryer. This was the Basement Sitch.

Another problem we had, steadily growing beyond the bounds of what we could accomplish ourselves, was the Backyard Sitch. Once again, old house, previous owners, and upon trying to get the yard to resemble something other than a jungle, the BF found mountains and mountains of bricks, wood, and stone. ALL somehow buried in our teeny little yard.

Yipes. So after months of hemming and hawing, my boyfriend and I finally threw in the towel and called in the professionals. I grouped together everything that had been there for ages and needed to go.

We called in two guys from All Star Waste & Recycling who came to the rescue. I fretted that they'd tell me they couldn't take everything, but one of the workers assured me everything could go. He then calmly told his partner to "bring him the sledgehammer" and within record time .... VOILA!

All the junk was magically taken care of. SUCH a load off. Once things were cleared out, we discovered ... TREASURES!!

Real wood blocks rare, and original to the house (now we just have to think of something cool to do with them):

A door . . .

And hidden on the other side of it, in the lock ... the master skeleton key!

Then the coup de grace ... an old matchbook!

I couldn't find any info on the place - looks like there was a Three Little Bakers Dinner Theatre in Wilmington, Delaware that closed down in 2007. BUT! I did find another matchbook on eBay! LOL. And it looks like this fine lady used to perform there.

Did we discover any dead bodies? No, not yet. But I do like the fact that I've uncovered something besides bricks (god - so many bricks) in this old place ... a li'l bit of history.