A More Stellar Cellar

I'm not really sure what inspired my industriousness, but I spent a couple of days the first week of September on a project that was not even on my list: cleaning up the cellar's larger side (where the mechanical equipment is) and getting a handle on organizing all that stuff. That also meant getting rid of trash, donating a few items to the Rescue Mission, and taking chemicals and old fertilizer to the environmental recycling center. Above is the much improved view looking from the stairs; below is the same space as seen from the far (south) side, where the bay foundation under the master bedroom is.

I confess to being quite pleased with myself. This was larger and yet easier than I might have thought so I'm glad I just did it without really thinking about it. Some previous posts have included random cellar shots, mostly when it has flooded, such as this one from November of 2020. And you can get a little sense of the mess from this post about replacing all the fluorescent fixtures, from July 2020. But perhaps the best "before" shot is this one, reposted here but taken at the end of January this year:

This leads me into a deeper story within this clean-up-and-organize endeavor. It's possible I've never owned up via the blog to my obsession with candles. Those who've visited the house know they are scattered about the downstairs, and two or three are likely to be aflame when there's company coming. I'm a sucker for the big sales by the bigger players like Bath & Body Works or DW Candles. (Until they became too cheap to burn properly, I also depended on Colonial Candles.)

When I first came to Winston-Salem to teach at Wake Forest University, I had colleagues who made a regular Saturday morning pilgrimage to the once-a-month Candle Sale at the Blythe Home Scents warehouse up in Elkin, NC. They invited me to tag along and then I became an even more avid solo attender for however many years they continued with those sales. Cash only, and I'd shell out several C-notes each time I went. You couldn't beat the prices and you couldn't find more appealing scents that were right up my alley. While I've burned through almost all of those $8 22-ounce oval candles in the intervening years, I do still have an enormous stash of votives and tea lights in those most cherished scents (Moroccan Spice! Cardamom! Vanilla Latte! Vanilla Brandy!). Plus there are pillars that might have been two bucks each, and quite a few tapers that I may never actually put to use because I just never do.

The cleaned-up cellar space now has them tucked away on their own stand-alone shelves. Bowed under the sheer weight, but all there together.

And I also consolidated all the other candles (mostly Bath & Body Works) onto a neighboring and larger shelf. Treasure chest, or fire hazard: I'll let you decide.

As long as the mood is a confessional one, I should also reveal the final stash scene: inside the sideboard at the front door. Amongst other things is actually quite a trove of the specialty-style candles I get from DW Home. The inability to harness this compulsion might lead some folks to conclude that I'm dimwicked.