Nail guns, saws, and a lot of Hispanic music

As I sit here all I hear is the clamor and work of two painters, a carpenter and an electrician beneath me working away, music blaring, air compressor compressing, table saw sawing and someone whistling.  It is all going to be worth it in about a week for finishing the basement is going to literally triple our family space!  Here are the pictures I took on the day they started working:

Here it is all cleared out.  You can see the large black pipe on the left wall...that will be dry walled in so you can't see it.  Oh...and that spider web of bx wire will all be cleaned up into nice tidy pipes. 

A bathroom is going to go where that work bench is and the furnace and water heater will be closed into a utility closet.  Between those two obnoxious poles is where our new couch will go and on the wall on the left our TV.

Here is the plan:

I will keep you posted!

Clearing it out...

Getting ready to finish the basement has taken more work than I imagined.  Seriously...five years of crap has been piling up down there!!  I made an honest attempt to go through everything but as life goes we were down to the wire and had to get it all out the Saturday before they were going to start demo.  Here is the every embarrassing picture of our garage full of said crap:

I can't even look at this with out getting a migraine and stomach ache!!

Sealing the basement...two weeks later...

Darn rain has kept us from completing the sealing of the basement! What was supposed to be a 4 day project has turned into more than two weeks now.  I guess it doesn't surprise us.  Every project takes longer and cost more than expected.

Here is the progress so far:

The boys were so excited to watch...especially when they jack hammered the front stairs.  It is amazing how exact and close to the house the digger can get.  It is also amazing that our foundation is solid as an ox!  We were expecting the worst with an old house.

Our house sat like this for almost two weeks waiting out the hazy, spitting rain:

Finally last Friday it was dry enough to apply the sealant.  It really is a green Hulk like goo:

They were supposed to come and finish up today but it rained again last night!  Hopefully by the end of the week we will be done with this mess!

Buh-bye

I will not miss you when you are gone!  Tomorrow we are having our basement foundation sealed on the outside with a rubber wall.  They are going to dig around our whole house!  Yes!  Good-bye nasty landscaping and gravel driveway.  I tolerated you for a couple years but now you are a thorn in my side and I will not miss you when you are replaced with limestone and asphalt!

So long falling apart front and back stoops which will be temporarily replaced with nice new wooden stairs until we remodel.

 Mostly...be gone wet basement!  You smelly, musty thing!  I have no room for you in my life anymore!!