Water-Proofing Our Basement....Finally!

    11 years ago we had love at first sight.  We had looked at at least half a dozen houses, and as soon as we walked in the front door of this house, we knew we were home.  The house had lived a long time being loved, but not cared for.  The curtains would blow when the windows were shut.  During wind storms the yard would be be littered with shingles.  The upstairs bathroom was rotting away.  To top all of that off when it rained our basement became a swimming pool and then a mold farm.  We had to prioritize which repairs would come first.  We did the roof, windows, doors, furnace, upstairs bathroom (which had a rotted out sub-floor that needed replaced), and then finally the biggest expense, we had to water-poof the basement.

Our pre Wet-Tek basement.

    For the last few years the basement and it's mold and mildews have been making me really sick.  I have asthma and my biggest allergy is mold.  I spent winter with an inhaler nearly permantently attached to my mouth.  Our basement contributed to a few trips to the emergency room for me to receive breathing treatments.  It was time to invest "a lot of money", and finally fix the problem.

    I called Wet-Tek for an estimate.  We had spoken to a couple of waterproofing companies, but I liked their process better.  Lance (the owner) came to the house and looked around the basement, and gave me a quote.  What he had to say made a lot of sense to me.  Their system made sense.  I was impressed with Lance, and his system.  We decided to go ahead with Wet-Tek, and make our basement healthy and useable.  I booked a date.

    We spent the week clearing all of our garbage from the basement (it wasn't really "we", I made Christopher do it).  It turns out that over the last 11 years our basement had become a hold all for anything we did not know where to put. We have no garage, or shed for storage, the basement became it.  We had to find spaces for everything.  Come Sunday night Christopher was a little frantic wondering where to put everything... let me just say that our 19 year marriage nearly came to an end because of it (as did his life).

The air cleaner, it worked wonders.

    I was filled with dread thinking about the noise, the dust and strange men in my house.  I hate having people work in the house.  I always feel so uncomfortable.  I don't want to go to far in case they need something, but at the same time I feel really uncomfortable.  I was especially dreading this time because I would be all by myself in the house with strange men.  I was looking forward to the house being done, but I was so not looking forward to the upcoming week.

    Monday morning, the dreaded morning came.  In came these two really nice, clean, polite guys.  They were so nice and friendly that I really did not think about them being "strange men", they were just Shawn and Jeff.  It was not as noisy as I thought it was going to be, and it was not as dusty as I thought it would be.

Fergus (our pup) would sit on the top step, and as Jeff and Shawn came up the stairs carrying really heavy buckets full of debris from the basement, they would stop to pat Fergus at the top of the stairs and tell him he was a good boy.  If I was coming in from a walk with the dog and they were out at their truck taking a break, Jeff would play with Fergus, and I would chat with the pair of them.  It was actually a pleasure to have them in my home.

    Each night after the guys were done, I would go downstairs and take a picture to record the progress.  It was pretty neat to watch it coming along.  I was so impressed how they plasticed off our fridge, and other few items.  They also kept this giant air cleaner going, and it greatly reduced the dust.  

Shawn putting the finishing touches on the cement.

    Thursday late afternoon they were done.  They had jack hammered my entire basement floor, layed down essentially inside weeping tile, which they then tied in to a new sump pump.  They hooked up a new battery powered pump in case of power outage.  In other words, we were prepared.  When the guys were nearly finished, Lance came to look at the job and give us our bill.  I was really impressed with this company. 

Jeff hooking up the sump pump.

    Waterproofing our basement was not a cheap proposition, but it will be nice to have a dry basement.  Last night it poured rain.  Normally when it pours, we have to keep checking the basement and make sure that the sump pump is on, and working.  Christopher went down to check the basement last night, and came up with a big grin "dry as a bone".  Wet-Tek guarantees their product for the life of your home.  We now have peace of mind.  I would highly recommend Wet-Tek to anyone who needed their basement waterproofed.  If their product is even nearly as good as their workers, then it is a marvelous product! wettek.com

    We have to wait three weeks for the cement to cure, and then we can begin to create a livable space for our family.  We can make full use of our house.  Our tiny house just got a little bigger.  This house is not just a structure to me, it is the biggest part of our family, the part that keeps us safe, warm and dry.  This house is not our starter house, it's our forever home.  

Our Bathroom Renovation

   Ten years ago we walked into this house with our real-estate agent.  We walked in through the front door into the living room.  We were greeted by cica 1970's barf green shag carpet.  As soon as I saw the house I knew it was ours (in spite of the shag, not because of it).  It just had that feeling, it felt like home to me.  The only room in the house that did not need help was the living room.  Every space in this house needed a massive dose of TLC.  The worst room in the house by far was the upstairs bathroom.  As soon as I saw it, I told Christopher, "Oh that will be changed".
   The first thing to be done, was pull up the shag carpet.  It revealed a treasure, hardwood floors!  Christopher refinished the floor, making it beautiful.  Next Gabe and Grace's rooms (there were only two kids when we moved in).  Gabe's room we painted electric blue and bright red, with Harry Potter everywhere.  Grace's room was peachy pink and moss green with a beautiful fairy border ( Elly has since inherited it).  That was all we could afford at first.  A few years later we retiled the downstairs bathroom (it's the size of a closet), repainted, new pedestal sink, new cupboard over the toilet, new mirror.  Then we painted the living room. Sprucing this poor house up has been a ten year process.
    Flash forward nine years to this time last year.  We had decided to renovate the upstairs bathroom.  It was not a purely cosmetic decision.  We were very worried about mould ( and as it turns out, rightfully so).  This poor old house of ours had been severely neglected in the years before we purchased it.  I really wish that I had taken before pictures of that bathroom.  It was an eye sore.  They had built the counter, and surfaced it with some sort of awful laminate, to be honest, I think it was linoleum flooring.  The tub surround was two different colours that had been pieced together (white and beige).
    For months we picked up pieces for the bathroom and stored them in the basement.  I would not settle, everything had to be just right.  We hired a flooring company to replace the floor with beautiful black and white laminate flooring.  When they pulled up the old flooring they discovered that it was rotten and full of mould , so a new sub-floor was in order.  We also had a bath fitting company come in and replace the tub surround.  It is now gorgeous, and all one colour, white.  Every single decision was thought through.  Some of the decisions were very, very funny.  Where we live is fairly close to the New York border, so we do cross border shopping.  I had searched online for the perfect toilet here in Canada, but could not find what I wanted.  I found a Jacuzzi brand one at the Home Depot in Watertown, New York.  So I packed up my son Rowan and headed over the border.  Our choice was water efficient, and gorgeous, and considerably less than I would have paid for something similar in Canada.  I was extremely proud of my purchase.  Coming home across the border when asked "reason for your visit?", the poor crossing guard could barely contain her smile when I told her " I wanted to buy a toilet."  "But we sell toilets at home" she replied.
"Not Jacuzzi ones that look this pretty.", " Go on through" she said, not bothering to cover her laughter.
    Last March break I packed up the kids and headed for the great white north to visit my sister and her family in Saute Saint Marie for the week.  This left my husband with a lot of time on his hands.  He decided to finish the bathroom while we were gone.  When we drove in from our trip at 1:30 a.m., my husband was covered in white paint and had a frazzled air about him (not to mention his mad scientist hair).  What I saw when I went up stairs, made my jaw drop.  It was the most beautiful bathroom I had ever seen.  Honestly it looked like it could have been in a magazine (you will notice from my pictures that it no longer looks like that ).  You will also notice from the pictures, that I have not yet found a satisfactory window covering.  I put a white sheet up to cover the window when the shower is in use, really unattractive, but it stops the neighbours from poking out their own eyes.

My beautiful Jacuzzi toilet.

I fell in love with this mirror in the Home Depot in Watertown, NY.  

We had huge debate over the sink and counter.  I had wanted a full one that went the whole wall, Christopher thought it would be too much for our small bathroom.  In the end I conceded (someone should write that one down).  Turns out he was right (don't tell him I said that, it will go to his head).  I found these great shelves at Bed Bath and Beyond.  I also found black wicker baskets.  Each person has their own basket for their toiletries, so far it is really working out well.

I hung pictures of our last year's family vacation to Cape Cod on the wall across from the tub,

 as you enter the bathroom.  Every time I walk past them I smile,

 and remember what an amazing holiday that was.  

    I am delighted with the way the bathroom came together.  I was afraid that it would not look as good in reality as it did in my head, but it did.  Now I just need to convince Christopher to redo our bedroom.

The Growth Chart

The Growth Chart...  
  I lay in bed this morning, compiling a to do list for the day.  On that list was "what will I blog about today?"  As I lay there thinking, I happened to glance out into my hall and catch sight of our family's growth chart.  That chart is like a family history, unassumingly sitting in the hall across from the downstairs bathroom.  Just looking at it tells so many stories.
    We had been in the house about a year when I painted it.  I took out my craft paints (I had just taken a beginner's folk art class and we had learned shading).  I wanted it to be as tall as my husband (six feet four inches), so that they could compare their heights to Daddy's.  Yellow would make it look like a school ruler.  I took out Christopher's measuring tape and marked out each inch and foot.  It may have taken an hour or so.  I stood back and admired my work.  I had no idea what it would come to mean.
    That growth chart has become pretty full, nine years later.  Shortly after I painted the chart we became foster parents, so the foster kids are on that chart.  My nephew Matthew comes to visit us each summer for Canada Day, he's on there a few times (I would need to stand on a chair to measure him now, he's over 6 feet tall now).  I have had to go over old entries with permanent marker a few times now.  When we repainted, I masked the chart off with craft paper.  You can see the old paint framed by the new sunshine yellow paint.
   Every few months the kids run excitedly with with a pencil, and beg to be measured.  Everyone lines up and takes a turn.  I then take my fingers and calculate how tall they are now compared to their siblings at that same snapshot in time.  We then take a few minutes and talk about how much they have grown.  The last time we measured everyone we discovered that Gracie was shorter than her older brother Gabe when he was a full year younger than her... which then in turn sparked funny stories about Gabe.
    A fun project that took just a fraction of my time has become a treasured historical document.  Who knew then what it would come to mean to us now?

The Kid's Bedrooms

    I love reading other people's blogs.  I feel like it is a cross between being a voyeur and and reading an online self-help book.  I love peeking into other people's lives, and then stealing their best ideas and applying them to my life.  Not too many of us are going to share our "ugly" truths, but no one is inspired by "ugly truth", they are inspired by "inspiration".

   I am a work in progress, and sadly it has taken me this long to figure out what works and what does not work for myself and my family, who am kidding, I'm still learning.  Life is about balance.  Part of that balance is having a space to recharge.  Every few years we change the kids' rooms.  It usually happens when they hit their next maturity plateau.  For Gracie our oldest daughter it was pre-teendom, for our youngest it was the switch from baby to toddler, for the twins it was toddler to school age kid.  I am going to share the picture of Gracies' room and Elly's room.  Keep in mind that currently these space's do not look this tidy.  I gave them the space to recharge in, it is up to them to maintain it.

I purchased an inexpensive cork board and then hot glued flowers to it, and hot glued letter's to spell out Gracie's name 

Gracie's room has a slanted ceiling.  To maximize the space we put her bed under it and curtained it to make it feel special.  I asked my friend to write positive affirmations across the top, so that every time she went into her room she would read them and hopefully internalize them

I found this neat little pressboard cut out of a girl.  I painted it with chalk board paint,
then hot glued a dress made of painted cork.

I found the letters at Michael's  and just painted them purple and used the end of my brush to make poka dots.

You can't really see it in the picture, but just over Elly's head is a picture the big kid's drew for her when she was born.  We framed it with an inexpensive picture frame.