Young House Love had a blog post yesterday about their leaky roof and asked if any of us had leaky roof stories to share. I don't have a leaky roof, but I thought I'd share my adventures in fixing the issue of my leaky basement door.

The problem is many faceted--or at least several faceted. Here's a picture of the area...well, most of it; I'm grabbing pictures I already had on photobucket and will augment when I get home today.

This gives a fairly good picture of everything but the steps to the basement which begin about halfway back on the house and come forward to the front, with the basement door under the kitchen door (more or less--they may be offset a bit). but you can see the hip roof, the slope of the property from back to front and the raised kitchen doorway landing.

1. In heavy downpours, water will sometimes overflow the gutters which have covers on.

2. The patio slab is more or less neutrally sloped, but the areas directly next to the house don't shunt water to it. And the grading near the house foundation has slowly eroded enough that water tends to flow parallel to the house down that main grade slope rather than away from the house to the driveway and then down. So when it hits the basement stairs, it keeps right on going.

3. The house is 60 years old, so the basement stairs landing at the bottom is only about one inch lower than the basement door. And the kitchen door, with a raised landing is directly above, and tied into the house directly, but also 60 years old. And the soffits of the roof, being 60 years old, onlu stick out about a foot from the walls. So over 60 years' time, 60 years of rains have worn the concrete slab tied into the house that provides a way out of the kitchen AND provides the cover for the basement doorway has worn so that water flows to the brickwall (which has been well waintained. And no water flows into the brick--but gravity, doing what it does, THAT water all ends up in the basement landing too.

You can see how the kitchen door entry is raised. The basement door entry is directly below.

So with water coming from 4 major sources, not all of which were originally planned for, when we have those deluge rains, the drain in the basement stairs can't keep up, the water rises to the level of the bottom of the doorframe and pours under the door.

And since the basement floor was poured 60 years ago with a design for a sumpump halfway across the room and NOT to the new pump right in the corner behind the door, the silly water actually flows right past the working sump pump and towards the no longer existing sump pump...and then wanders aimlessly around under my washer and dryer trying to figure out where it should be. Silly water! Never more than an eighth of an inch, so shallow enough to walk around in safely while using a floor squeegee to herd water to the workin sump pump, but deep enough that I wouldn't try to use the washer or dryer until the concrete is dry again.

Since I'm not planning to reexcavate the basement floor and repour concrete, nor demolish and rebuild the basement stairs and kitchen door landing, I have just completed step one of a two step plan to limit the water going down the baement stairs. Which was having a kitchen patio awning (aluminum W type awning with square aluminum framing and supports) installed to cover the entire large patio to the driveway, the kitchen landing and the length of the basement stairs. The awning has a built in gutter system, so overflow water from the roof will automatically flow out to the gutters near the driveway, the kitchen landing stays dry so no more water flow down the basement walls OR eroding the concrete slab suspended over the basement entry.

And step two will involve digging out the grassy area right next to the part of the patio at the back of the house, building a one or two foot raised flower bed box, while installing on the bakcyard edge of it a drain to trap water flowing from the back and direct it out away from the house towards the driveway, whichis the third source of unplanned water. Plus it will give me a flower bed framing the back end of the patio and look nice :)

At $3K, the awning was kind of pricey, but since excavating and rebuilding/pouring concrete in basement and stairwell w ould have run in the tens of thousands of dollars, it's definitely a much lower budget way to go. And I do like the look of the awning.

I'll try to remember to take more pictures of the area and post them here later today.

Tags: young house love
Current Mood: peaceful

It's only taken me a couple months to get back to pulling up the carpeting in the master bedroom--I got started and then saw something shiny and never got back to it.

Here's a few pictures of what it looked like before I got distracted.

I was sort of my own worst enemy in this--I started pulling carpeting before I took the bed apart. But I didn't pull up the carpet tacks or staples on the part where I'd removed carpeting, so that was kind of hanging over my head in terms of getting back started again. Once I got that part done, tho, the rest (even dismantling the bed) just flowed. I had everything done (including getting the first set of tacks/staples pulled) and the bed back together in the time it took to play one disk of Pride and Prejudice (Colin Firth version).

So here are the afters

I'm really happy with the result. NOw I just have to move the side tables and dresser back in. (ewwwwww :)

But it didn't go quietly.

And there was a good deal of paint that came off in various places. The wall between the bedroom and bathroom will be needing some work, I'm afraid. There's at least one place where drywall will need to be patched. But I knew the room had issues with water damage and it's nothing that can't be fixed.

Just to remind you of the old light fixtures:

The kitchen door light isn't that clear in this picture, but it's just one of those basic jelly jar fixtures--except the jelly jar was no longer attached to the light housing box and was just dangling by the wires. When the light bulb on that fixture burnt out (I think the 3rd night I had to work after moving in), I just left it alone. Until today.

This model is actually a motion detector/dusk-to-dawn light which makes it much better for leaving for work since I park right next to the kitchen door.

The old fixture at the front door was working fine, which is pretty amazing since it was crammed full (both in the light bulb housing and in the junction box) with and old and blessedly abandoned hornet nest. Yuck!!! I think the new fixture looks nicer and so far, it's hornet nest free.

The next chore on today's list is to get the wallpaper border down from the spare room.

Hard to believe I want that gone, isn't it??? However, something I never noticed before today. Check out the ceiling in that picture? Still can't see it?

#%^&^%$^ popcorn ceiling. Thankfully the only one in the house, but as much as I want it gone, I don't think that's going to happen on this go round. Mainly because the wall bed is supposed to be delivered/installed on the 22nd and I REALLY want the room painted before then. Doesn't really give me time to smooth out the ceiling. sigh. Oh well. That was my Saturday so far. I put down the brown paper stuff to protect the floors, but I don't think the wallpaper border's coming down until after I sleep.

Now that the house is actually mine (and the credit union's), it's time to pull up that nasty old carpeting in the bedrooms and see the original wood floors. This will be an ongoing project--I'm starting in the spare room (because I need my workout space, and the wall bed people will be here on the 22nd--hopefully). Here's something of a 'before'--you can't really see how old/dirty the carpeting is here, but imagine every off-white/cream colored carpet from the 70s and what they would look like now, especially if they needed to be restretched.

Before I got the courage to yank it all up, I checked out the floor in the closet.

Very promising, so I took the plunge.

So I still need to pull up the carpet tack strips and the staples that held down the padding, but I think the floor looks great in here. I was a bit worried as this room took the worst hit from ice dams back in the winter of 2010, but the floors appear to have escaped unscathed.

Yay!!

And I'm very happy with the result. Looks great but not a huge architectural change in style.

And after:

Well, really, Part II--I planted daffodil bulbs right after moving in. Today I weeded the flower bed, and then between the shrubs in the front yard. Sorry, I didn't take before pictures.

As you can see, my one dogwood isn't doing too well. And even if I keep the bushes in the front, they have GOT to be cut way back.

This section was all just grass again, up to the bushes--I dug it out and planted daffodils. Except for that surprise plant on the left by the stairs. Not sure what it is, but it came back this spring by itself. I like it well enough that when the stairs get widened, it will be transplanted at the opposite end of the bed, near the driveway.

These bushes were completely overgrown between with weeds--weeds tall enough to completely hide the basement windows. Now you can clearly see that they need to be washed. Sort of win/lose :)

I plan to reclaim this side of the house next weekend. I don't like the yellow bushes at all--Jo thinks I should get rid of them and make the whole side roses. I think that's a good idea.

Current Mood: chipper

Phase I of the move in is complete. Having divested myself of about 25% of what I owned in the condo, and putting about a third of what was left into storage, I decided what would remain in the condo for staging and have moved (with the invaluable help of John and Amy) the rest into the little cottage on Barnett Avenue.

C'mon in and I'll give you a quick tour. We'll enter from the side door into the kitchen--my itty bitty kitchen, but it's efficient and functional and I'm coming around to it.

The view from the dining room back into the kitchen and the side door. BTW, I misreported the color of the stove. It is NOT harvest gold, but one of the earlier almond-colored appliances. I think the olive green range hood blinded me ;)

I don't have any furniture in the dining/living room, but I do have this kickass fireplace. I want to change the sconces over the fireplace to something in a dark metal (to better match the wood-burning stove insert.

The Chair. My office chair was simply not going to cut it as my only non-bed piece of furniture, so I made a field trip to Ikea. It's much more comfortable than I expected it to be. Also, this is the living room half of the living/dining room.

Heading into the back half of the house, we come to the larger bedroom (calling it the master bedroom is just pretentious ;) ) Note that the kitties have chilled out enough from the trauma of the move to monopolizing the bed.

then the bathroom--which is is possibly even smaller than my hallway bathroom back at the condo. But at least now I have a full sized, non-fiberglass tub, so it's a step up. As you can tell, the sink/vanity doesn't *quite* fit into the space provided. I have yet to smash my hip on the corner of the vanity, tho, so it's not been too big an issue.

let's do a close up of that extremely awesome tile, btw.

Not much more that one can say about it, is there? LOL. It's very 70s.

And then there's the smaller bedroom. since all the workout gear is in storage, this room is mostly empty. I do have the vacuum in this room's closet, as well as both crockpots.

Okay, here's the status of the condo this morning. Here's the front hall. Note the new color and light fixture :)

And here's the living room. The table at the far wall used to be in the front hall. I'm going to stage it as a desk.

And my no-longer-pink dining room. I think it will look very nice once I get the valances up over the windows. I love this light fixture.

And here's the new floor in the hallway bathroom. Not bad looking for 78 cents per tile :)

The Sewing Room with no sewing machines :)

The master bedroom. The bedspread in here will end up in the 3rd bedroom. The comforter for the master is a beige/tan (similar to my sofa color).

The new door to the bathroom. it's perfect. If you're wondering why there's a tiny inset to it, please refer to the previous sentence. :)

The new master bathroom floor, new vanity and new mirror.

And a view of the new light fixture.

So, there's an awful lot of light yellow in the house now, but it looks nice and bright.

I think I'm at max capacity now :)

From the doorway. In the foreground is the Singer 201. In the corner is the table for my 1924 W&G chainstitcher (the pretty one with all the lovely decals). The box with the machine is sitting on top. Beside it is a set of treadle irons that will eventually have its own lovely top for the 1878 W&G--I have it staged with a board right now, but I'll go more high tech later.

Still from the doorway, but directed to the opposite corner. First is my Singer 128 with roccoco decals. It's on the cabinet that I also use for my Kenmore 16231 (modern). In the far corner is a vintage Kenmore chainstitcher of undetermined date.

Next up, viewed from the W&G corner, and pointed to the middle of the left wall, is my 1908 Singer 27. This is my franken-treadle/franken head machine. Someone had tried to electrify it, but didn't know the difference between a Singer 27 and Singer 127, so it didn't work. Once I got it some appropriate parts and pieced together a table for it, he worked like a charm. I keep this one set up to go all the time; I love sewing on it.

Now, standing by the window and facing the doorway and closet, are the 1909 Singer 66 in a parlor cabinet on the left. Also my 1925 Singer 99 on the right. That machine is a hand crank but I remove it to lower the machine into the cabinet and didn't reattach for the pictures. You can also see the backside of my 1874 Singer 12 treadle.

Standing in the closet doorway, here's the Singer 12. See? Still pretty :)

Current Mood: satisfied