Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Leaky Basement

Several weeks ago we discovered that we have a leak downstairs in a closet.  This was our son's room.  He has moved in and out of this room since high school, once after graduating from college while he worked on his career in banking. He stayed for almost two years at that time.  Then he bought a condo and a couple of his frat brothers moved in and helped with the mortgage payments.  Then he sold the condo and bought a house because he could afford that on his good salary in mortgage sales.  That was about 2006.  Then the market started its slide and he had to change jobs.  In 2008 he rented his house and he and his Chocolate Lab moved back into his room. We consolidated his furniture into ours, putting some things into storage.  He changed jobs twice more trying to find better jobs and stayed another two plus years.

Last March, our son got a better job out of town and is renting a small bedroom in a frat brother's house.  We still have most of his furniture in our house and garage along with the Chocolate Lab.  His large walk in closet is still packed with clothes, baseball cards collected when he was younger and the other stuff from his youth that he did not have room to move.  Some of it was never moved. I was looking for something in that closet and discovered that things on the floor were wet so we started taking out everything on the floor.  When we had enough moved, we could see that the carpet, baseboards and walls were wet and there was some mildew. Obviously we have had the leak for a while.

After the insurance adjuster came and said that we were not covered, we priced one of those basement waterproofing companies and he wanted over $1,200 just to dry out the closet.  We decided to work on it ourselves.  So my husband used the wet/dry vac. to vacuum water from the carpet and we removed the carpet and pad.  Hopefully we will be able to reuse the carpet because we sure could not match it after almost 13 years.

Yesterday, my husband and a friend removed sheet rock and insulation around the bottom of the walls in the closet exposing the outside walls and house framing.  This room is in the basement surrounded on that side with dirt and has concrete blocks as the outside walls.  They discovered that we have a leak from our water well which they were able to fix.  We live out from the city so have our own water well.  All the wood around the floor of the closet was wet so that has to dry before they can do anything else but fortunately they found the leak.  Now they have to make sure that the pipes outside coming from the well are not leaking also.

It seems that we cannot get anything finished because every time we start doing one thing, something else happens that we have to work on.  We now have a room that is piled high with stuff from that big walk in closet.  We also have a long list of things that need to be done around the house.

I would love to have days to paint and quilt but those are interrupted with the events of everyday living. I did get a set of wine glasses and a matching carafe painted a couple of days ago with a 19th Hole design.  Also I am working on painting a vase which requires multiple layers of paint. In addition, I am working on a set of wine glasses for a bride and the bridesmaids as a sample.  I already have a beer stein painted with a tux for the groom.  If I could just finish all these things that I have started, get them photographed, write up descriptions, and get them loaded to my online stores, I would be doing good. Maybe today!

  


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