To get to the basement from the first floor, you say a little prayer and make your way down the most unstable, old wooden stairs you’ve ever seen. Fun story: the first time we walked through the house, Brian was carrying the baby throughout the entire house, then handed me the baby to carry down the death stairs. They were literally being supported at the base by a single brick. Anyways, the current basement is one of those scary, unfinished Chicago basements so not too much to show. The thing we lucked out on were that the existing ceilings were pretty high (for a basement). Chicago code requires basement ceilings to be 7′ and this was at least that in some places and taller in others. We didn’t quite get what the big deal was at the time, but basically this saved us having to dig out the basement and possibly more foundation-related work as part of the renovation (read: $$$).
There are columns down the center of the basement, except the front-most column which is closer to the stairs. It’s positioned to take the load-bearing weight for the foyer wall on the first floor and the dividing wall in the second story living room.
There was a laundry here and old workbench. The windows were boarded up as we didn’t even notice until the second time we came through how much light it could get. (I mean, it’s still a basement so it’s not going to be sun drenched or anything). When we were in the process of buying the house the basement was full of stuff – once it was cleared out there only remained one friend hanging from the ceiling (see image below). A warning? You decide.
Stairs down into the basement 
Light switch 
Stairs in basement – see that brick? 
This is the brick holding the stairs up 
Basement front 
Basement front 
Bump out in the basement 
Back of basement 
Column footers (pretty chunky) 
Looking forward from back of basement 
Looking forward from back of basement 
Old lock on basement door 
Zoom in on the brick – some wear and tear 
Found hanging in the basement – stuffed Oscar the Grouch
The basement stairs are scary and shaky. Just to clarify- I pointed out that they were being supported by that little brick. Unfortunately we had to get out of the basement so it was one at a time with prayers.
Yep, my mom was the one who noticed the brick was the lynchpin in the entire basement stair setup. Got to give credit where credit is due. 🙂