If it we did a ‘before and after’ picture, the basement would be before the before.

Wow.  I’d almost forgotten what this site looks like. 

It has been a while since I’ve had the time to write a post – it’s not that there hasn’t been anything to write about – because we’ve been busy with processing chickens, harvesting our garden, trapping three evil raccoons, fixing up the dogyard, repairing our fourwheeler (after getting it back from being repaired, I broke it again) and the big one; renovating our basement. 

Before I write any further on the basement I’d just like to acknowledge that when we moved here four years ago there were a few people who helped make our purchase possible.  I don’t want them to think that this was a mistake: we’re happy with the house; it just needs a lot of work.

Right.  The basement.  It’s a disaster – and not because it’s mid-demolition right now, either.  I mean prior to having it’s walls torn apart and the floor ripped up.

When we lived in the Yukon, our last year was spent in a cabin I’d built over the summer – well, really, two months at the end of  a rapidly disappearing summer.  In fact, the day I put the roof on, it snowed.  Those who have seen it might describe it as small.  It was 16′x18′ with a small loft, which, by my calculations is 432 square feet of usable space.  So, to say that storage space was at a minimum is not exaggerating.  Then, we moved to our present location where our living room is almost the same dimensions as our cabin.  We also have a kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom plus a basement.  It didn’t take long for us to make the upper part of the house home, but the basement – that extra space, that easy to ignore expanse below us – became our storage space.  And when you have the room, it’s amazing how much junk a person can collect.   But we didn’t treat it like a good place for storage, with shelves, cabinets, organisation, no; we treated it like a hole in the ground with a ‘Fill Wanted’ sign out front.  And so, here we are: four years of accumulated stuff and a basement in serious need of work, but before the work can begin, it needs to be organised and before it gets organised, it needs to be cleaned, but cleaning it would be so much easier if it were organised.  Y’see?  It’s sort of like the snake that swallows its own tail: it has no beginning and no end.

So the plan is this: get the woodstove installed to help with the moisture problem.  Then, start in the little room that houses the pump and some accumulated stuff.  Once it’s cleaned and re-done, we can make it a storage room: complete with shelves and organisation.  Then, on to the big job of tearing out the rest of the basement and building two bedrooms, one for us, one for the kid.  If we plan it right, we might even have a nice, cozy sitting area by the stove for those times when a book, a fire and a coffee or hot chocolate are called for.  Or a beer.  I’m not fussy.  But, I’m getting ahead of myself. 

So far, I have torn out an eight-foot by twelve-foot space to expose the block walls of the foundation and the concrete pad underneath the subfloor.  It was no surprise that there were wet areas and rotten wood under the subfloor; afterall, I found a crack in the foundation that I could see through.  Right outside.  Seriously.  It’s one of several cracks – hopefully no others are right through.  I have fixed this problem by digging to the bottom of the foundation and putting some torch-on Blueskin over the crack and several feet to either side of it.  I protected the patch with two-inch styrofoam insulation.  That ought to stop the water in that area.

This is the section that I have been working on.  You can see the rotten wood on the old 2×4s and the stained block from the moisture.  Other than that, there were no surprises.

Another thing that would be benefitial to stopping the water in the basement is some eavestroughs.  Ours are busted and bent so water just pours down the foundation wall because there is nothing to take it away.  So, I’ll have to fix that, too.

I also had to remove some old plumbing.  It was a continuation of the main line to the hot water tank and sink in the kitchen, so I had to cut the line and cap it beyond where it went to the tank and kitchen.  I was reluctant to solder a cap on because I would have most likely burned down the house.  I have a knack for this sort of thing, it would seem.  I tried to fix an outside water bib this spring and just about caught the house on fire, so I wasn’t going to try again.  Especially when the piping was so close to the 30-year old wood.  It’s not that I can’t solder, it’s just that any wood above two feet from ground level in the house is tinder-dry.  Luckily for me, there is a force-fit product that eliminates the need for soldering.  Good thinking on someone’s part there.

This is an example of the proximity of the plumbing and the dry wood.  It’s right against the foundation wall in most cases and very close to the wood everywhere.  I know there are fire blankets for this sort of work, but I figure if there’s a need for the blanket, maybe I’d better not do it.

So, that is where things stand at the moment: one section of the basement that looks like a bomb went off in it and the section that I have started to take apart. 

Next weekend we drill a hole through the block wall to install our new woodstove chimney pipe.  Tune in then for what is sure to be some kind of foray into the realm of the unplanned and unforseen.