I've been meaning to post about the multitude of home improvement projects we've under taken, so this is a long post. I'm trying to get caught up to "now", so that I can keep future progress report posts short(er).
We first saw our house in March of 2011, and these are pictures of the lower basement only. Our house is multi-level, so the upper-most floor is bedrooms and bathrooms, half a floor down is living room and kitchen, then half a floor down below the bedrooms is another living space and bathroom, and finally, half a floor down below the living room/kitchen is a basement and laundry room space.
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| Looking down the steps into the lower basement. We should've been suspicious of the lack of furniture from the get go... The opening to the left heads into the laundry room area. |
Looking at the wood-burning insert that we found out later was incorrectly installed, and could've caused a fire if we continued using it. It was the incorrect size, and they destroyed the fire brick that was already lining the firebox in order to install it.
This picture is taken standing in front of the fireplace into the opposite corner of the room. The steps to the upper basement are on the left.
Just a shot into the laundry room. Some of the cement block is painted, and others, like in this picture, are not.
When we moved in, we put a lot of our storage items into this space because we were redoing the upper basement and needed a clear work space. Then, there was a pretty big rain and there was a lot of water in the basement... This resulted in us tearing a lot of the paneling and walls down and linoleum tiled floor up.
The tile just came right up because the water clearly had flooded portions of the basement before.
We had a hard time determining where exactly the leak was coming in, and still are not completely sure, but it's probably coming up underneath.
Paneling taken down on the wall separating the living room from the laundry room. The hot water tank is on the right, the furnace is off to the right side, but not in this picture.
One of the things we started to notice when going up and down these steps, (looking up into the upper basement below the bedrooms), was that the steps were really squeaky and kind of bowed, leading us to think they were rotting. So, shortly before Juliana was born (Spring 2012), Brian tore the steps out, thinking it would be a quick project to rip them out and put new ones up...
When he took the steps out, we discovered that they were sitting directly on dirt. This picture is after Brian dug the dirt out.
Here's the massive pile of dirt piled up behind his "workspace" in the step area.
Once he took the dirt out, he put in concrete blocks to create a new foundation and barrier between the dirt underneath the house.
He then poured concrete on the bottom for the concrete blocks to set on so there wouldn't be any resettling.
And... the new steps. Dirty because we carried 50 or so buckets of dirt up these steps, through the upper basement, out the garage, and into the backyard where we were also in the midst of trying to re-landscape.
Finally, no more dirt pile!
Brian also had to re-do the pipe for the sewer because the plumbing in the upstairs basement was wrong. Before...
After...
To make more room in the space, and to be more efficient, we determined that the furnace needed to be moved from the center of this room to the side beneath the steps going to the living room (the steps are the wood angle at the top of this picture. In order to prepare for moving the furnace, we purchased a new, hot water tank and moved it to it's future spot. It's directly beneath the steps from the upper basement to the kitchen/living room and is to the left of the steps from the lower to the upper basement.
February of last year, we called professionals and got a sump pump system installed. At this point, we were just putting finishing touches on the upper basement and knew that if we were going to attempt a redo of the lower basement we would have to fix the water issue. We had spent the previous summer landscaping, and checking all the french drain systems, etc, to see if there was a problem there that was contributing to the water in the basement, but still, with heavy rains or large snow melts, we got water in the basement. Here's the jackhammer they took to the entire far wall of the basement where the fireplace is. Prior to them coming in, Brian took the hearth off the fireplace. It was more of an "add on" than a real hearth, and we still weren't certain at that point in time what we would do to fix the firebrick and make the fireplace operable.
The drainage system on this wall.
This is in the far right corner of the basement, opposite of the steps. The hole just kept filling up with massive amounts of water. When they first turned the sump pump on, it initially drained into the yard before this past summer when Brian tied it into the house's drainage system, and it wore a ditch from the amount of water it was pumping out. Now, we only really hear it on the occasions when we have rain or snow melts.
All of this is to make sure that if water comes in, it drains down into the french drain system they put into place.
The tank for the sump pump.
Then, they covered up all of their work with concrete to finish it off.
The sump pump, with back up battery, and all drainage pipes that go up and out into the backyard.
So, for about a year now, this is what the lower basement has looked like... No wall down the middle of the room, you see the post for under the steel I-beam here to the left of the furnace in the middle of the room. We purchased the washer and dryer before we moved in, even though the house came with a washer and dryer.
Fireplace is on the left, laundry room on the right, furnace duct is the steel on the right side of the picture.
Before we moved the hot water tank, the stairs going up are on the right, hot water tank is now in front of the framed wood underneath the upstairs steps.
Mom and Dad came and helped us with planning out the laundry room a little bit, and for the most part, everything is in the spot it will be in when we're finished. Brian framed in the wall a little bit behind the washer and the utility sink, as well as put in correct pluming for the sink, washer, and dryer (steam dryer). The far left corner has the electric box, and now has the sump pump on the floor. We are planning on creating a corner closet between the two basement windows (one over the sink, and the other is the bright spot on the left of the picture) to neatly "contain" the sump pump and electric box.
When we put in heat ducts in the upper basement, we also fixed the heat ducts for the furnace when it eventually gets moved to the left of the hot water tank.
So this brings us up to the present... We were on the fence about finishing the lower basement. With the possibility of moving soon, we weren't sure if it was a great investment or not, but ultimately, we decided that it will greatly help with selling the house. Having a house where we've taken care of EVERYTHING (I won't even get into the safety issues we encountered in the upper basement!!), and the only thing they could possibly want to do would be cosmetic updates to the kitchen or bathroom, that greatly appeals to potential buyers. We realize that there's only a handful of people who would take on the things we've done/do!
This is looking at the right corner opposite from the fireplace. The steps going up would be on the left. Brian has single-handedly (in one day!) framed in the wall on the right, and from the left of the fireplace. Not to mention all the work we had to do ahead of time to finish taking down the rest of the panelling and ceiling tiles. For the floor down here, this side of the room will be a family room style because it won't have any of the windows and still has the fireplace, so we wanted to do carpet. However, because of the potential for flooding, we decided to put in the big investment into these 2x2 plywood squares with rubber feet on the bottom so the floor sits up off of the concrete a little bit. So, you can see, Brian's put almost all of the plywood down for this side of the room. In the laundry room, we will tile the floor right onto the concrete so it'll come up to the same height.
Before I left for a conference in San Diego last week, Brian had finished in framing the walls for the rest of the family room. The opening on the right will be a door into the laundry room. I'm standing on the steps looking down into the basement taking this picture. Brian has the rest of the wall on the ground that he's framing out. The wall bisects the room, directly under the I-beam, so we don't have to do all the extra framing out of the I-beam and steel post like we have done in the upper basement.
This picture is taken from standing on the steps looking to the wall to the left. Brian put up plastic before he framed the outside walls so that if there was any vapor, it would be trapped. Then the framed walls went up. In this picture, Brian has stapled up insulation between the posts. He also installed two new heating ducts that weren't in this room before. He also put the electric wire in through the wall and into outlet boxes, so it's all ready to go.
Our plans are as follows (so look for it as we move forward!):
1) Continue framing in walls in the laundry room
2) Insulation in the wall between the family room and laundry room
3) Installing a brand new gas fireplace insert into the existing fireplace (so excited about this!!)
4) Move furnace to it's location
5) Dry wall to finish off both rooms
6) Door into the laundry room
7) A drop ceiling in the family room side (no ceiling on the laundry room side, too much duct work)
8) New, bright, pot lights in the laundry room (I hate a dark, dingy laundry room!)
9) Tile floor in the laundry room
10) Carpet in the family room
We have a couple of busy weekends coming up, but we hope to continue making great progress! And, let me just say again, Brian did all of this by himself! It's going much faster than our work in the upper basement (mostly because we were plagued by issues that caused us to need to redo pluming, sewage, and electrical. So, we don't anticipate running into any major issues with this project), and I'm hopeful that I'll get to enjoy my new gas insert before winter is over! =) If not, I'll still use it... Not to mention my excitement over a bright, shiny, clean laundry room!! Can't wait to see how it all looks when it's finished!
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