Everyone we talk is probably very much aware of the work we're doing on our basement. In fact, I think everyone in the neighborhood is aware of it now due to all the jackhammering and Spanish yelling. If you're new here or haven't heard us mention the basement before (I don't see how that's possible since Matt and I talk about it all time), here's a brief rundown and a timewarp.
April 2007:
Mother Nature blesses us with 2 days of non stop rain. Matt discovers squishy carpet. We spend the next week vacuuming the hell out of the Matt's office and bathroom. Also had the help of our friends Branden and Elise (we love you guys).
April 2007 to May 2008:
Both of lay awake on nights with large amounts of rain and stress about it. On some days we wake up with a little bit of seepage in ham shack. Try to dream to make it go away. Lalalala *ponies* YAY feel better now!
Late May 2008 to June 2008:
Maybe you didn't hear about the epic flooding in Iowa, we receive more than a foot of rain in a week. Matt is in Utah with Mars Rover team, while I'm at home vacuuming day and night.
June - July 2008:
Stop dreaming and commit to solving this water problem once and for all and start calling people. *bye bye ponies*!
July 2008 - now:
Set dates up for basement tiling and remove carpet from basement. Remove stuff from basement. Remove baseboards and nasty moldy cabinets from laundry room. Cover remaining in plastic.
So that brings you up to speed. Here's some Before pictures:
Two weekends ago Justin came down and helped us remove the laundry base cabinets, baseboards, and couch from the basement. Thanks Justin!
Last Thursday the carpet installers ripped the carpet and padding out of the living area and Matt's office.
Here's some shots of that:
Next, we got to tear out the toilet and stack our stuff under plastic away from the perimeter walls:
The hard core stuff started today with the removal of the old concrete and the installation of the tiling system. We were delayed this morning because the crew went to Kellogg, Iowa instead of Ames. Oops! So they started work about 10:00am.
Here's what it looks like now:
They will be installing more tiling that goes from the laundry room through the living room to the sump pump. There is a dip behind the washer that they were a little suspicious about earlier, so that's why they're doing it. They will be back tomorrow morning to finish the job.
As you can imagine, the jackhammering and sawing makes quite the racket. I'm glad we're not the ones that have to do it.
Hopefully this will be the end of the demo and nasty work so we can get started on making the basement livable again. We have lots of ideas on the improvements such as painting, laundry room cabinets, and home theater upgrades. More updates are soon to come.
