Cleaning out the attic

My friend Jwan invited me to the Pitt Football game on Saturday afternoon. Awesome invite but I declined because I needed to use the day off to get some things done around the house.

My main objective was to get up into the attic crawl space since I haven't been up there in over a year. The last time I was up there was during the inspection when I was buying the house and I remembered that we saw some boxes up there during this time, something the previous owner was storing up there ... I was hoping that they were still there. But I was basically also just getting up there to do an inspection of the insulation and ceiling of the roof.

Why has it taken me over a year to get up there? ... well ... because it isn't an easy process. I had to take everything out of the closet. Then I had to unscrew the hanging clothes rod and remove the shelves ... then I had to get a ladder and lift and squeeze myself up through the terribly small 16" x 16" hole pictured below. It's your typical attic crawl space entrance, I guess.

... it's just I would rather have one of those nifty pull handles where a set of stairs neatly unfolds when you open the door.

Anyway ... I made it up into the attic. Nothing special to see. I walked around, carefully balancing on the beams between the sections of insulation, checking things out - everything seemed to be in a suitable, okay condition.

... but I was excited to see over in the corner a small pile of various sized boxes, about 10 in total ... the items I saw when I was up there during the inspection last year.

It took me some time to move all the items to the attic hole (door?) and down into the house. It was a tedious and dirty process since the boxes were covered in dust and practically falling apart from age when picked up and moved. And it would have been a lot easier if I had someone there to hand everything to instead of me going up and down the step ladder, squeezing myself and the various sized boxes through the small hole over and over again.

Finally, after getting everything down, I was able to dig into the boxes. Here is what I found; mostly x-mas decorations, which is a little disappointing, but still a neat find none the less:

A couple of boxes of old Christmas lights. I dig the primary colors but I'm afraid to actually use them since they are so old. (crusty wiring and two prong plug)

A box of 'Glita-lites' ...

'they glitter like jewels!' ... now these are pretty cool ... but they come in a string of 6. That's awesome if you only want to light about about two feet of something.

There was also a box of extra Glita-lights called 'Lighted Ice' ...

A box full of cardboard paper Christmas houses

Another box full of die cast Christmas figurines; Santa, Figure Skaters, People riding Toboggans ... and a couple of Double Decker buses.

Plus these two old cool, plastic 'matchbox' type cars were in the box.

There were also two old Samsonite suitcases sitting up in the attic ... the date on the boxes they were in said "shipped on 4/11/1953". Pretty neat.

now this was the coolest find ... because, you know, what could be in a suitcase stored away in the dark corner of my attic? Clothes? Money? Scandal? okay ... I was letting my imagination get away ...

But I got nothing ...

just a business card for a hotel in Ohio. Maybe there is a tale to be told there.

Oh well ... it was a fun afternoon cleaning out the attic.