Anybody else relegated to the basement?

My loading room is my third bedroom, heated and cooled yr round.

I'm banished to the basement by choice, at my old house (before we had kids) I had a bedroom to do all my gun stuff. When we moved I claimed the finished basement as my own. Yeah , that lasted about a year , so I moved my stuff into the back uncarpeted area by the utility room and it's been good. When I'm down there banging away the family is 2 stories above on the opposite side of the house and no amount of brass tumbling or bullet pulling (yeah, it happens) can be heard, I can put on some music and make noise at night without disturbing the babies or wife.

My wife is concerned about toxic materials associated with ammunition and so I wear basement shoes when I'm doing anything ammo related to keep from tracking anything through the house where little ones and dogs could be affected . even if I could (but I can't ) sort brass in the living room, I wouldn't want to.

I don’t get this “relegated” thing - I feel kind of privileged that my wife and I have a basement where there’s plenty of room for a clothes washer and dryer AND a loading bench. When I started handloading over 40 years ago, my wife and I lived in a single-wide mobile home in town. There was a fold-out closet on the back bedroom that was just wide enough for a clothes washer and dryer, OR a loading/sewing bench. We went to the laundromat once a week to wash and dry our clothes.
I’ve said about a hundred times that my wife of 49 years this year is as into guns, hunting and shooting as I am. I like handloading more than she does though, so I do most of the handloading for both of us. It works out - she likes sewing more than I do, so she does most of that for both of us.
I guess you could say I “relegated” my wife and her sewing to this used to be bedroom (where the computer is) because her sewing machine and sewing bench is behind me as I type this. But I don’t think my wife feels that way about it. I think she is as happy as I am about not having to clean things off the loading bench in a fold-out closet before she can set up her sewing machine.
I do prime most of our cases sitting on the couch in front of the TV in the living room. But that’s because I like priming cases with a hand primer more than priming them with the press. Besides, I can have a cup of coffee on the end table beside the couch while I’m priming cases. I learned a long time ago that if I have a cup of coffee anywhere on the loading bench while I’m loading, I’m sure to knock it over.

Basement and I'm happy there. Started behind a locked door and expanded since it's now my territory.

Ru4real said:

I did, so we got divorced. Wife #2 two didn’t like it either, so I sent her packing also.

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I was married once, never again. To late in the game for that kind of stuff. It's cheaper to rent.

Creed Bennett said:

Mac, you sound like my kinda people!

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Thanks! Seems like our kinda people are few and far between these days.

I've been thinking about converting our back bedroom to a gun/reloading room. But, as we don't have central hvac it'd be difficult to control the temperature. Since we seldom have company and our families rarely visit, our arrangements work out pretty darn well. As I type this, she's sitting on our reclining sofa knitting a blanket and I have a Model 12 Winchester taken down on the coffee table waiting for the magazine spring to arrive. Our living room currently smells of coffee, Hoppes #9 and faint woodsmoke from the stove. The cat is snoring softly on the hearth rug. What's not to love?

Mac

crestoncowboy said:

My basement is 1/2 workout and 1/2 reloading.

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That certainly sounds familiar. The basement at my house was converted to a gym 40 years ago as a friend and I were into powerlifting big time. We really had a lot of equipment and although we still lift 3 days a week as the years rolled by a lot of it no longer got used. So I did some consolidation which made room for my reloading hobby and even freed up enough space for my pool table.

mmb617 said:

So I did some consolidation which made room for my reloading hobby and even freed up enough space for my pool table.

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My pool table is on the third floor. Real PIA getting an 8 footer up there. At least 2 holes in the wall i had to fix but it's there. If i need it down it will come out in pieces. I was also big into powerlifting but drifted more towards the bodybuilding side. Then backed off. More maintenance now, and hoping some of the damage I've done fades away some. Still have all the equipment though. Leg press, full rack, ergo,..... they take up a ton of room. I have my reloading setup in a 15x20 or so corner of the basement.

Nope my depriming operations are out in a shead. Wouldn't dare do it inside.

I've been in Phoenix az my entire life and never had a basement here. I know they exist, but the homes that have them are wildly out of my price range.

If we had basements in Texas I guess that's where I'd be. Instead I reload in a small storage room adjacent to the garage.