Bathroom Demo + Sledgehammer Massages

We first tackled demolishing what the previous owners called a bedroom.  No window?? How can that be a bedroom?  Helpful hint: if you want to put bedrooms in your basement you MUST include a window that is big enough for a human to escape through.  This is called an

We gave mom the wrecking bar to get some of the extra blocking out of the floor joists, all was going well until she missed one and proceeded to give Adam a ‘sledgehammer massage’.  This was not an attempt to collect life insurance…she actually really likes her son-in-law.  Wrong place wring time?  Needless to say Adam has a bruise, and mom is cut off of the sledgehammer duty for a while.

You will notice in the pictures of our demolition some interesting takes on vapor barrier and insulation tactics.  Theses are how NOT to photos.  Vapor barrier is a specific material that is rated to do that job specifically…cellophane or any random plastic that you find at the hardware store will not do.  I believe what we found in the walls was very cheap painting plastic and it wasn’t even stapled up evenly…there were gaps everywhere.  The definition of vapor barrier is to provide a moisture shield…holes = crappy shield.

There was a second bedroom in the basement that was actually a bedroom – it had a window!  The room itself was um…stinky…sticky…it just had to go!  We found cedar behind the panelling which was a surprise.  We also found out where the mice liked to live (ugh!).  Thank god there were no live mice…just evidence of their previous stays.

Once we got the walls out and floor removed the basement looked a little different…it looked HUGE!

We knew when we bought the place that there was a sump pump installed at the bottom of the basement stairs…we just didn’t imagine it to be such a make shift install.  Looks like we have some investigation and research to do on sump pumps and how to (re)install them properly.

The good thing, it does drain the water away from the house so I guess for now I can’t really complain.  This one is all function and NO fashion.

One of the major items we wanted to get done right away was the garage.  We already did the floor, so now it is on to insulation (this is how you insulate) and vapor barrier (with proper material).  We also reclaimed the basement tongue and groove sub flooring and put it on the walls of the garage.  We were going to do drywall but we had all of this plywood from the basement that otherwise would have been tossed out, and plywood on the garage walls is actually better for mounting tools and shelves etc.  With a little paint it will look fantastic!

The garage also got some new fluorescent lighting and a few new outlets before the insulation and plywood went up.

We also learned this weekend that the washing machine leaks…a lot…sigh.  This is why people are so suspicious when buying houses…people ‘forget’ to mention things like this.  After closer inspection it is very apparent that this washer has been leaking for a long time, the previous owners had to know about it but we were never told.  In all honesty, we bought an old house, that was in rough shape, we expect things to be in need of repair.  But when it is something like this it needs to be stated up front.  We would have still bought the place, and probably would have paid the same amount, but we wouldn’t be a little resentful with the lack of honesty of the sellers.