Basement Flooding

Our sad clogged waste line.

The title says it all. A water seepage problem that I thought I figured out and had taken care of came back with a vengeance this morning. It wasn't because I didn't have the right thing fixed, or that something else was contributing to the problem. Nope. It was because I hired the wrong person to fix it.

So after a fun morning of wet vacuuming and cleaning, I went to knock some heads together, politely that is. (Seriously folks, this is the second time I've wiped poo off of the basement floor. Thank heavens C was there to help this time or I may have completely lost it. So that said, I was looking forward to my chat with folks at  $49.99 Sewer.

I walked down the block, seething quietly, towards the Rooter Co. to have my nice civil chat with them. And what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a "For Rent" sign, instead of the business that was here, with a little odd feeling, part nausea part ick, I knew in a moment it would not be fixed quick.

DAMNED YOU 49.99 SEWER! 

Thankfully the contractor arrived on the scene today. His crew started on their first day of work in the basement. Rather than track down the ghosted rooter company, I've decided to hire someone I know I can trust that will take care of the problem for good. I've been seriously pleased with Barry so far and as our friend Oliver puts it, "It doesn't hurt that they are all extremely handsome men". It is like a bloomin' reality show in our basement. I'll have to get a group shot. It being their first day of work, I am a little hesitant to ask them to pose for a photo, I don't want to come off as super creepy. Once they realize I'm only "special", and not *special*, I'll think about approaching them. Maybe.

On the positive side of things, the contractor's three man team made short work of the remaining concrete in the bathroom. Here's a happy view from down the hall.

Speaking of hall ways; after much agony and a bigger bill, we'll be removing the tile in the hall. That is, what tile there is in the hall, will be removed. I was going to patch it, but the patches have gotten bigger and bigger and with the whole entry section missing all together.  It is definitely the right time to fix it and make it right, even if it isn't the right price. That isn't saying the contractor's price isn't fair, only that free is in our budget right now and work isn't free. We knew we'd have to deal with it down the line, but while everything is being torn up down there it makes the most sense to keep tearing things up instead of putting an ugly band aid on it that we'd end up ripping off in several years anyways. So, soon this blech with be covered with swanky new 6 x 24 porcelain "wood" tile. Perfect for a basement. The tile itself is a steal at less than $2/sqft. That much I'm pleased about.

Now you see it. Now you don't.

Upon finishing the demolition for the second floor and basement, I got a hold of a clean out company and said goodbye to the evidence of all our hard work. Finishing the demo doesn't keep me from waking up in the middle of the night thinking of some small thing that we forgot to take out or remove before the cleanout crew paid us a visit. That sounds very ominous now that I think about it. It brings to mind big white vans from Jersey pulling up to "clean up a nasty mess". But they were very polite and even attempted to half-heartedly sweep up after themselves. The great news is that we can see the floor! The bad news is that we can see the floor! Here are some before and after shots for your viewing pleasure.

basement bedroom and game room

basement exercise room

2nd floor kitchen and living room looking into bedroom 

2nd floor small front bedroom and back yard

The clean out ended up costing us in the ball park of $1500. Yet when you consider all the concrete block hiding under that red awning in the middle of our back yard, concrete backed tile from the basement demo, and the plaster and lathe we took out from the second floor, it was a heavy truck and a half of trash we got rid of. They did recycle the metal. We didn't see the money from it, but I do like that it was recycled. I can't imagine finding the energy to take it down to the recycle center myself at this point, so someone else might as well.

I'd rather spend my energy fixing up the items going back into the house. I've been working on picking paint colors for the cabinetry and stumbled across a great clean white from Benjamin Moore called Snow Fall. I decided to test out their Advanced Alkyd Paint on something small before tackling all of our kitchen doors and drawers. I am in no way feeling like our kitchen is small when I look at the pile of doors that I have to paint. I tried finding a company in town that would take them and paint them in a spray booth setting but alas, for NY, our job is too small and no one wanted to mess with it. So, that leads me to this:

I love the size and quality of this bathroom medicine cabinet but I do not love the faded gray-brown wood finish that has antiquing in all of the crevices. It doesn't go with anything else I have picked out for the bathroom but I figure a lovely semi-gloss paint job will spiff it up nicely. I prepped it per instructions, cleaning, lightly sanding and wiping off any excess dust with a tack cloth. I removed all the hardware and the two mirrors that were accessible. I patched a few dings in wood as well. I bought the brush that the Benjamin Moore dealer suggested and went to town. I was a bit bothered by the bubbles that formed in the self leveling paint. For the most part, it did indeed smooth out over the course of it's drying cycle but there are still bubble holes that I had to sand down and I am hoping a second and third coat will alleviate the problem. 

I am suspicious that the brush I used for the first and second coat, which super smooth, wasn't soft enough. I ended up with some fine brush marks left in the finish. The whole reason I threw down the cash for the Advance paint was for its durability and smooth near factory finish. I will be sanding between the second and third coat and using a different brush for the top coat. Fingers crossed.

Basement Bathroom

This is one small project that snowballed into a full tear out. Silly me. I thought for a brief hot minuet that only the bathroom shower needed to come out and we could replace it with a shower kit. The old shower was leaking and we saw old evidence that it had leaked into a part of the closet behind the shower. Well, that old water stain on the dry wall was masking a whole pile of rotted out studs. The studs behind the shower were pure black silt and once the adjoining closet door was removed, the wall sort of gently waved in the breeze. Oh, to be on a tropical island.

I can almost feel those sea breezes silkily curling across my sun baked skin. Almost.

I'm pretty baffled that someone would build a bathroom without any sort of waterproofing. We removed the studs in the bathroom and just continued down the line until the whole closet was removed as well. All that remains of the bathroom walls is a mulch stained footprint.

We decided after prying the concrete and tiles off the bathroom walls that we'd leave the shower pan for our contractor to remove with some more serious horsepower. It was a bit astonishing to see the tiles were just thickly back buttered onto the brick party wall with concrete. We are pretty sure it was concrete because we found a rotted empty bag tucked behind the pipe in the wall once we took out the tile.






















But it is a bit airier down here now. After eating lunch and restoring some of our blood sugar, we've decided that we won't rebuild the closet. I think keeping it as a mudroom with a bench and wall hooks will help the basement hall not feel so closed in once the bathroom walls go back up. We also plan to remove the closets under the stairs and simply have the railing exposed to help it feel less like a creepy descent into a basement. There are plenty of other closets down there for storage and a whole room in the back where we can put shelving if we find we still need to squirrel things away. For the time being, it's nice to see the bad going out and hopefully soon we'll have the good going back in.

Basement

Well hello there basement. The folks living down there finally vacated this past weekend which means we were able to get a good look at the whole space for the first time, ever.  My hands hurt from wielding a crow bar this evening so I'm just posting a bunch of photos. So much to do. So much to tear out. Enjoy, and WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE!

TOP: Private entry from outside (so many changes in its future)
BOTTOM: Front room (future rec room)

TOP: Middle two rooms (one of which will be future game room)
BOTTOM: Rear room (future exercise room)

TOP: kitchenette (removing stove, replacing with mini fridge and microwave)
BOTTOM: bathroom - ick

Demo forth good people.