My basement

I thought you might like to see some photos of the basement.  The before photos are photos of the flood.  I thought about sharing the photo of the toilet but I'm not going to.  I had to send it to the insurance company today.  I'll bet they're sorry they asked for it.  I was sorry I had to send it.  I didin't share it with you, though.  Thank me later.

The demo photos are the pictures of how it sits today.  I'm waiting to hear back from the insurance company about how much more this is gonna cost them.  As I said, I had a really bad day yesterday.  Today was better because they're going to cover, under the protection I have for building law and ordinance coverage, framing and insulating the cement walls properly.  It's just another thing.

This will give you some idea of what the basement looked like before:

 This is a view of one of the partitions that used to separate the big room into three smaller rooms.

The above photo is coming downstairs.  You can see the water went all the way to the front door, which also must be replaced.

 Although hard so see, because of the angle, this is looking at the toilet area.  You can see the lip of both commodes.  You can see the vanity edge at the top of the photo.

This is the opposite wall from the main wall.

 This is looking back from the large room in the back.  At the top of the photo is the doorway that leads to the real bedroom that had the unspeakable goo of carpet and pussycats.  Also at the top of the photo, there are two large closets that will be removed.

You can see what I was speaking about with the paneling and asphalt tiling.  You can also see something I've been talking about for a long time; the unusual setup of the two toilets next to each other, without the detailed picture of the unspeakable ooze.  I didn't upload that one.

It was a bit, well, dated, downstairs, as you can see.

Here's what we're looking at today:

The above photo is of the main wall.  The piles of rubble on the floor used to be the tiling.

 This is the back of the house.  The pipe in the ceiling is the drain line for the shower.  I have to replace the ceiling tiles.

This is the kitchenette area and another view of the main wall.  the black marks are the glue marks for the furring strips.  I forgot to mention that I'm the second owner of this home.  The original owner actually built several of the homes on my street.    Why this was done, I have no idea.

The paneling has been removed, for the most part, from the walls.  There is just a bit to go.  All of the demo work was done by three people in about four hours.  The next milestone will be removing the sheet rock and cleaning up the mess.  The floor gets pressure washed after that  Then furnaces get cleaned, construction starts, and walls go up.  

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I needed to do something for me today.  I don't have any money.  I have no desire to do this or that.  I just needed to accomplish something for me today, something that would just let me know that there's some sense of normalcy.  I'm dead dog tired.  I didn't sleep well.  I have a horrible stomach ache that won't go away.  I took the night off.  I'm rather OK, from the mental standpoint.  Just tired, and I don't think anyone would blame me for that.  But that thing I needed to do for me started out with recollecting the things I found in the basement.  On the shelf, high above the goo, was a gallon of paint, a couple of rollers, some saw blades, and some cabinet hardware.  I also found some grout from a tile job I did in one of the bathrooms and I have some caulking material left over from some other projects, so I'll be able to repair the shower without cost.  

I had spackling compound in the garage and a 1X2 that I will use to replace the circular cutouts in the wall.  The trick is to cut the board, tack it up with a grabber screw on each end, and then attach the circle to the board in a couple of spots. A bit of spackle applied with a wide taping knife, a little bit of sanding, and it ought to be as good as new.    

The cabinet handles I found in the sack are more modern and match the existing holes.  The wooden cabinet doors in the bathroom have received the first coat of white paint.  So has the ceiling.  The trim is going from a wood tone to a white.  I think white is more crisp and modern than wood and already, the bathroom is much brighter.  The paint was worn and flaking on the shelving in the bathroom so this is something I needed to do anyhow.

I have just enough purple left from the bedroom to paint the walls in the bathroom.  I'm not sure if it's going to clash with the wallpaper, but I have purple paint.  I have the original paint cans from when we painted the bathroom, so I could at some point, repaint it back to what it is now, but for the time being, it'll do.

It'll match the bedroom anyhow.

In the midst of the storm, in the midst of topsy turvey, it's just another illustration of how God is there.  I'm OK, I have my faith, and I had what I needed to take care of a job.  I have coverage to deal with the unexpected problems in the basement and I'm so grateful to my agent and to my insurance company for being great to work with.  I hope they don't fire me because as long as they'll have me as a customer, I'll be one.

God provides.  And I'm more committed to my faith and trust in Him than I think I ever have been.  It's not the tangible things, like the house.  This is God's house.  I gave it to Him, along with everything else I have.  I'm just trying to take better care of it for Him.  He's blessed me to allow me to stay, but more than that, I had two dogs and a pussycat comforting me last night.  Bucket has been by my side all day, except for painting.  I've been taking it easy tonight, because like I said, my stomach hurts.  Badly. And I don't know why.

Today was a bit better and I'm not one bit worried about tomorrow.  I have one more thing I didn't have before.  I have a project to take my mind off this nightmare.