Before the demo begins!

As many of you may know, on June 3rd numerous storms came through the midwest and caused major floods. Monticello experienced lots of flooding too. Thank Goodness is wasn't as bad as other parts of the midwest like Iowa but for our little family with no money, shovelling water out of the basement and the reality that it caused thousands of dollars of damage was a bit overwhelming...not to mention it happened on Amara's second day home from the hospital.





Needless to say its been a busy summer trying to figure out what we were going to do. We've decided to re-finish our finished basement and make it a family/playroom.





Before construction begins, we decided to put in a major waterproofing system- B-Dry systems(http://www.bdry.com/ ). they will dig a trench all around the outside of our basement walls and put in their system which will include a new sump pump. The system will be installed on the 29th and will take 4 days. After they are done, our dear friend and contractor, Jamey Schurvinske and his company, Precision Decks (http://www.precisiondeckscu.com/ ), will begin construction.





Demolition of the basement down to the studs and cement ( the rains caused mold in the walls so EVERYTHING MUST GO) will be this Sunday. Brian and I have been working extra hard to clear out our basement and have put everything in storage. Here are some before photos!





This is the living room portion of the basement. The outdated panelling, carpet, and drop ceiling will be replaced with new carpet and drywall. New lighting will be installed too.





Here's the guestroom off the living room. We just redid this area two years ago.Since the water came in on two of these walls, we must tear this out too. Drop ceiling becomes drywall and this room will become carpetted too.



View from the guest room into living room. We are removing the bar and all the tile area. We will either have the whole area ( that also includes a sink and cabinet) become carpetted and just be part of the family/play room OR we may move the bar to come perpendicular off the staircase landing and create a small wet bar area in the corner.

Alaric has been helping like crazy. He becomes BOB THE BUILDER. Here he has the shop vac hose and is spraying down the place.

We'll post demo pics next week!