Projects

Whew! I officially declare that my longest hiatus from blogging to date! Sorry about that. Shortly after the 4th we were simultaneously gearing up for our inaugural drive back to the Midwest and for our first major house remodel. Upon our return, more decor decisions had to be made, our Internets were not playing nice, and we then got to spend a weekend with friends at "the Bay". Pictures from our adventures will likely make their way into a Shutterfly album and summer slices of Lewis-life will trickle into future posts.

Now, the post.

At the beginning of this summer, we had several rain storms that demonstrated the sieve-likeness of our basement.

Exhibit A

So we called our trusty contractor, Mr. Ned. The first item at hand was new flooring for our laundry room. Formerly, it was crusted, peeling sheet linoleum that had a seam running between our family room and basement walk out door - smart. The second was to replace the exterior door - a very swollen wood door, that became uncloseable and was "locked" each evening by shoving the dryer in front of it. The third was install to a floor drain, as we had found ourselves using a dust pan to bail out the water back outside when our cement walkout stairwell became a bathtub.

So with the old floor torn up, a new drain in place, and the pretty new flooring about to be laid, we notice some moisture where the wall meets the floor.

Hmm.

Insert several thousand dollars more worth of project.

Remove crumbling, old cinder block wall. Discover that our foundation "doesn't go all the way down" and we can put our hands up underneath it. Call neighbor's landlord. Plead permission to dig out huge six foot deep, three feet wide hole around our chimney and pour a new foundation. Permission granted. Build new 8x8 timber wall to replace cinder block wall. Put back dirt. Have large pile of broken cinder blocks removed from our backyard.

And *then* have pretty new flooring laid on laundry room floor.

Disintegrating cinder block wall.

Our AC on its ladder support (did I mention the part when the concrete underneath it collapsed and the AC fell into the hole, held up/saved only by its hoses?) and our shared chimney with its new foundation.


Pile o' dirt and stack o' lumber.

This pretty new flooring was to also replace the sea foam green shag carpet found in our ad hoc half bath also located in our laundry room. The carpet, however, had been providing the important job of covering 9x9" asbestos tile.

Woohoo!

Insert several more months of project.

Attempt to remove asbestos tile. Return with additional strategy to remove asbestos tile. Seal stubborn residual asbestos glue. In process, find mold in walls. Determine that best course of action is to first demo entire bathroom before laying that section of pretty new floor.

This all began mid-May. What had started as a four day project turned into a six week project - with the added bonus of a to-be-addressed-at-some-point-in-the-future, half demolished bathroom. That brought us to mid-July, i.e. the time slot previously scheduled for our *upstairs* bath remodel. So with our living room full of laundry room storage items and to-be-installed bathroom fixtures, we left for Iowa. The hope is that the project would be mostly finished when we return ten days later.

Not happenin'.

We'll just say that a small plumbing/structural issue led to the installation of a new kitchen floor and patched up ceiling.

Now one month later to the day, our master bathroom remodel is finished - completely new, down to the studs and floor joists and all the plumbing in between, with pretty new tile and fixtures to top it all off. I'll let the pictures (they are here, AP) share the rest of the story.

Kurt swabbing the deck.

Part of the problem - our outside drain after it was snaked at 10pm on Mother's Day. Yes, the plumbers do well out here.

Bad deja vu - our living room full of non-living room things.


Hole to China?

Pretty new floor, pretty new door

More inappropriate furnishings for our living room

Out with the old


in with the new



La ducha
('just wanted to give you your daily dose of español...it means shower)


We're still missing a couple things - a toilet paper holder, a place to hang our towels, a way to see in the dark, a toilet seat not from our old toilet, but we feel like we've arrived.