BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Home Improvement Things have slowed down

Mavis, your floor looks great! Dakota and Chester look like they will be great help moving all the furniture back lol. Is that wall curved? And I love the paneling on the wall, I have never seen it run horizontal like that.



Hey Iwonder!! A new person to play! We have had the same problem with our basement. We had guttering put up and also we painted this stuff called Drylok (I googled it and it said "Drylok makes damp, unusable space bright and waterproof. Available in latex, oil, and powder formulas, Drylok penetrates tiny pores in the masonry to form a watertight coating that stops leaks. It also comes with a five year warranty, when applied according to the directions.") around the base of our house. Our footing was cracked and so I applied this 3 times, probably overkill, but I figured more was better. I also used the Drylok in the basement after I cleaned up a horrible mold mess. I had to throw a lot of things away and not that I am glad for the mold, but I am glad for my neater, cleaner looking basement.

You want to know how to make people show up? I just got done with siding installers and they worked (ha I wouldn't call it that) maybe 6 hours on a good day. Some days they worked a couple of hours. It was very frustrating! Maybe call around and see if you can get someone else to come.

Thanks Connie - yes, Dakota & Chester have really "helped" through this whole thing - LOL
The wall behind Dakota is curved - yes. Here is a better picture of that.


Thanks for joining in iwonder.
I have to admit that I hired a good company to do the work here. They showed up - did the work & left again. I had about a month's wait between 1 job and the rest of the work, and was getting a little worried, but they suddenly showed up again and got everything finished quickly. I had a lot of estimators show up for all the jobs except for the bathroom reno and this company was the only one that even returned my call for that. They then gave me an estimate on the rest of the jobs (except the sidewalk) and by combining jobs, they came up with the best price, so I hired them.

That is a really cool wall. So is that your dining room area? I bet plants love that light.

The dining room area has always been further into the house - where it was before the sunroom was built 20 years ago (behind Chester in the last picture). However, now I'm moving the diningroom table into the sunroom and yes, I have lots of plants that live in there (along with my african grey parrot). I will be moving my aquarium into what was the old diningroom and I'll put the china cabinet back where it was in that room. I'm just waiting for my daughter to show up to help move everything and then I'll finally be able to finish painting the livingroom, since there has been too much in there to move to get at the walls.

We are repairing the basement water damage one room at a time. We bought this house a decade or so ago, and redid everything. But neither of us had ever lived in a home with a basement. Lesson number one, sheet rock does not go all the way to the floor in a basement. In one room we cut off about 3 feet of sheet rock on the exterior walls, replaced it with cement board and placed it about 2-3 inches above the floor, then "set" the baseboard skiffing the top of the carpet. You can't tell it's cement board, and it seamed perfectly with the existing sheet rock. (I did marry a very handy man). The carpet was replaced with a padded back berber. None the less when the rain fell, the walls are still perfect, the carpet was simple to pull and the fan and dehumidifier took care of it in less than a day. The rain gutter should take care of it completely, and they say they will be here tomorrow.

I looked all over the place for drylok, no luck. But this is working. We have completed two rooms, with one to go. The mold thing was nasty. The worst, my children's laminated school projects, (the ones from K-grade 6 or so) were ruined. Priceless.

The electrician promised Monday. We'll see. I have been looking for some great fixtures for an extra small bathroom, any suggestions? And some great organizers for a laundry room.

I love seeing the pictures, that is just fun. And I'm still in love with that porch.

Mavis, I bet your grey loves it in that room with all the light. I bet you are so ready to get things put back in their place and get the painting done.

Iwonder, I hope your electrician showed up...yesterday Monday or next week Monday?

The lessons you learn! Our basement has cement walls and is only functional as storage and laundry room. Which is sad because it is very large! But I love being able to have someplace to put stuff. After the big clean out I have been trying not to buy more junk.

My rain gutters are installed! And it's raining! Electrician the coming Monday. Yes, you are so smart at not buying any more junk! I have a problem with comforters, too many. Well I think your basement is better than no basement.

I bet the birds love that room almost as much as you do Mavis. How nice for them.

Iwonder, we had gutters installed after the siding was done and our first rain storm we found out they don't work! I called and someone was supposed to be here Wednesday and no one showed. Hubby is on vacation this coming week and he will have to call and see what he can do.

How can gutters not work???

I know I have to clean my gutters every few weeks in the summer or they get cloged with leaves & twigs - but if yours are new, what could they be clogged with?

Luckily, I cleaned mine out last weekend because it has been raining for the last 3 days.

Hubby thinks they should have set them under the roof a little, instead they are right next to the roof and so there is a big crack between the gutter and roof. Nobody showed or called and hubby is on vacation this week and he is going to call again.