The Basement, Part 2

I'm writing this much too late and many things have happened since my last post. But rather than have 30 different posts about the basement's issues, maybe it makes more sense to just combine them into one....

When we last left you, dear readers, us green and bright-eyed homeowners came to the house to find a few inches of water in the basement. Fast forward to us speaking with a bunch of different water proofing companies, who all came to the same conclusion: the water was coming up through the floor from a high water table and an old house with concrete floors and an older foundation.

After much discussion, we ended up deciding that for the sake of our sanity and sleeping at night, this was the way to go despite the large bill. Thankfully, we have an amazing support system from our parents, and were able to make this happen. Basically, what needed to happen was this: A trench would need to be dug all around the inside perimeter of our basement, approximately a foot wide and a foot deep. This would have a pipe placed in it and then covered with gravel and then concrete to allow water to choose this path of least resistance, rather than oozing up through the floor. Oh, and remember that beautiful white paint job we just finished? Yeah, they would need to rip out the bottom 3 feet of that, and replace it with sheet rock and a chair rail. They also installed a new sump pump. Fun, right?

Bottom half of wall removed in the area where the old slop sink was removed (RIP). That pipe is coming from the bathroom

Our lovely bathroom...Thanks to the one contractor that came by, chipped up some of the floor with his screwdriver to confirm there was water, and then left.... 

Look at that concrete!

Pre- installation of sheetrock and chair rail

Location of old sump pump with new concrete and sump pump

They removed some water soaked plywood

New sump pump

Who thought this was a good paint color? 

Thankfully the process was quick and happened over 2 days while we were at work, so only the cat had to be subjected to the jackhammering. The good news is that we don't ever have to worry about it again. Unfortunately, some annoying things did happen as they were fixing the floor: we had to have the ancient soapstone slop sink (that I was weirdly attached to for its history) removed and a boring but clean and functional white plastic one placed. Also, for some unknown reason they decided to place the outspout for the sump pump directly sticking out of the front of our house....thank goodness for large Rhododendron bushes to cover up this eyesore.

In other bad news, it seems like we kind of opened up a can of worms here with this basement thing....as they installed the new slop sink, turns out many of the pipes in the area are super corroded and need to be replaced. Or are leaking. Oh, and there's a giant sewer pipe with a huge crack in it waiting to leak god only knows what on our new floor....

So, we're calling in the plumbers and having this assessed now to see what our next step is.

Eventually, maybe we will get to put the floor down and enjoy the basement as a living space...? Fingers crossed. At least it's just the basement, right....? Oh, wait....see my next post....