Prevention pump

The main reason I had to redo the basement was that the sump pump turned off because we had lost power. I wanted to ensure that this doesn't happen again so I installed a water powered backup system. Tested and works great! Overall quick installation minus the crappy copper union that failed and I replaced it with a sharkbite coupling. Sharkbite fittings are great! Simple to use but expensive.

Water check valve to prevent contamination to our main water supply.

Insulated

Shut off installed if I ever have to service the pump.

                                          New Pump. 

Molding is done!

I still have to put a second coat on the walls, paint the molding and change doors but it's starting to feel like a room again.

These pics are old and don't have paint on the molding yet.

(waterlogged books that I couldn't part with on the upper shelf)

I still have to change all the doors since they are too short now.

This is the tool room weird molding angles. Thank goodness for angle readers!

Decided not to paint the tool room since it's just my workroom. It's primed and I can always paint it in the future.

Nothing to write home about but the water main access panel is installed.

And we now have a floor

It's finally coming together! I did most of the floor in the basement but still have to do the tool room tomorrow. I'm not keen on the floor style but it will do. Some molding and another coat of paint and we are done. For now..

I've come a long way these few weeks.

Paint!

Finally got around to painting!

Ready to Paint!

Ugh, finally. I need to stay on schedule to paint on Thursday and Friday to get the floor down on Sat and Sunday. Then I can finally get the room ready for the details. I can do the detail trim work with the couches, TV, and computer down there since I'll be cutting outside. I need to declutter the upstairs...

Ready to prime!

Well, I kinda started but was just too tired to work on Easter. Primed two walls and will continue to finish up this week after work. I'm hoping to have a final coat of paint by Friday so that I can start the floor on Saturday-Sunday. Don't worry, we can see the tape lines because the primer isn't as thick as paint but I promise it will be smooth and seamless with the final color (which I have already)

Getting closer

Nothing new to post since I'm just trying to finish up the taping on the walls. Once that is complete, I'll be laying down the flooring, priming and painting the walls and then off to the final trim details. It's taking a bit longer since the joint compound is taking longer to dry than expected because of the basement humidity. (even though it's much lower to avoid mold growth, it's still too humid to dry quick enough for me to work.) Images below are in the middle of drying (which you can see in the darker spots) It's almost completely dry now.

Another day and so much work to do

Almost done replacing the walls with mold resistant sheetrock. The new flooring is in the basement getting acclimated to the temperature (few days) and by Saturday, I'll be putting it down. I will not be able to do the finish work this week but hoping to get that done after Easter. 

And so it begins

So much to do but I did get a good amount of stuff done.

First, the laminate had to come up. So much laminate..

Getting closer

Now the foam underlayment has to come up and I need to get some air in the walls. There was also some wood composite with a water barrier under that. It was about an inch thick and 2' X 2'  That stuff was heavy....

Enough for one day.

It's been a while!

It's been some time and that's because the projects have been small and quick so I didn't think it was a good time to document them. About two weeks ago we had a power outage that caused our sub pump to turn off. As you can expect, the finished basement flooded with 6+ inches of water. I didn't renovate the basement at all, just a little paint and curtains and called it a day. Well thank you water damage, I have to completely gut the basement for many reasons.

1) Water damaged the laminate wood flooring. Easy enough to fix right? Wrong. Under that flooring was just a simple foam padding and under that some PLYWOOD. Now if you know anything about cement, you know that it can hold moisture. Moisture against wood is like leaving a sponge under the floor. The plywood has to come up, the mold has to be removed and a vapor barrier will need to be installed.

2) I didn't want to redo the whole walls because it was fine. I was going to remove about 2 feet from the floor and repair it but that would've been too easy. I removed a 2 foot by 4-foot section to discover that the framing wasn't to code. I couldn't leave the walls this way because each stud was about 30" apart. It was also made of wood. again... rotted and susceptible to mold. I will be replacing them with metal studs. The walls were also standard sheetrock and not mold/ moisture resistant. Why!?? It's a basement that is naturally humid.

It's going to be a busy time but at least I'll have new things to post. I took the week off my day job to fix the problem. It's going to take longer since I have a flood restoration company coming to dry out the floor before I can restore things back to its original state but I can get a head start on some of the problems.


Top left image is before we moved in and the others were after. I didn't do much since it suited our needs but I'll post an image of the disaster area.