Prepare yourself for one of the ugliest posts ever to grace this blog.  Sometimes when you’re renovating an older home, things are ugly.  It’s almost unavoidable.  When we first looked at this house and considered buying it, the basement was the obvious sore thumb.  It clearly had water issues because it felt humid, smelled dank and musty, and it was evident that carpeting had been removed (presumably after getting wet.)  With the carpet gone, the floor was a concrete slab with remnants of carpet glue and foam padding covering the entire surface.  But, I am the eternal optimist when it comes to homes, so I could look past that.

We were informed that the basement flooding was not a regular occurrence, but it happened during a particularly heavy rain when the gutters were clogged.  We dealt with pretty significant water issues in our PA basement, so we were familiar with an old cinderblock basement and how to dry it out and make it feel like a functional part of the home.  We felt like this was something we could tackle and, in addition, we thought our renovation budget was ample to finish the basement with a bit more finesse.  The part of the basement that is currently finished is only about half of the total basement footprint, so we saw the potential to expand the finished area and perhaps even add a bedroom and bathroom.  A part of that plan would include converting one of the traditional basement windows into a larger egress window to bring in more light and provide another exit in case of an emergency.  (Right now there are two, but they are relatively close to each other, so it would be nice to add one more on the opposite side of the basement.)

Anyway, once we moved in and got working on the renovation, we realized the bulk of our budget would be eaten into by the new roof, electrical work, windows, the kitchen, and the pool.  (You can see the progress we’ve made on the house in our first two years HERE.)  The basement kept falling lower on the list.  In addition, we realized after living in the house for a few months that we really didn’t need another bedroom or more finished space.  The house is plenty big for our needs and we were happy to use the basement primarily for storage and a workout area.  It is a bit of a hangout when we have a lot of people over because there is a ping-pong table, some places to sit, games, etc. down there, too.  It’s not a comfortable, cool, hangout spot by any stretch, though.  Teenagers don’t seem to mind it’s a 1970s vintage basement that looks like it could’ve been the set of Wayne’s World.

I get the sense this was decorated by teenagers and/or grandkids as their own personal hangout spot.  I imagine it was a pretty place for the kids to retreat to back in its glory days when converting your basement into a rec room was still a relatively new concept.

Since the basement smelled dank, we added fans and a dehumidifier, and the smell cleared up in just a few days.  We’re fortunate to have a drain on the floor of the laundry area, so we’re able to run and drain the dehumidifier continuously.  We’ve also made sure to keep the gutters clear, especially when the maple trees are shedding the most, and plan to do some more grading and gutter work in the front to keep the water moving away from the house.

After having a dry basement for almost two years, we had four separate water issues in the basement over the past three months.  The first event was when we got six inches of rain in a couple of hours.  The water table was so high that water started seeping in through the cinderblock walls along the back of the house. Thankfully, the water came in at a place where it didn’t ruin anything.  We just suctioned it up with a shop vac, put some fans on it, and it was good to go.  A few days later, our A/C drain was clogged and that leaked all over the same area.  A couple of weeks later, a pipe that wasn’t capped when we had some plumbing work done started to overflow and spew water when we ran the washing machine.  When the plumber came out to fix that, one of the old copper pipes had started leaking that very morning so we had to clean up water once again and have that pipe replaced!  It was crazy how we had all of those completely unrelated water issues right in a row.  Anyway, we’ve since added water sensors in a few key places so we’re alerted to any new leaks or water coming in.

As far as how we’re using the finished area, shortly after we moved in, the guys wanted to add a Smith machine to the workout area.  They found one on Facebook Marketplace for a good price that would just barely fit under the low drop ceilings (with a couple of ceiling tiles displaced.)  In order to get ready for it, I cleaned, primed, and painted the floor underneath that area and we added some gym floor tiles for padding.  That section of the floor didn’t have carpet glue or foam so it was much easier to simply paint for a short-term fix.  We used rugs to cover as much of the rest of the floor as we could until we figured out what we wanted to do.

While we’re not planning on putting any major money into this basement, I do want to take some steps to make it feel like a nice place to spend time.  Eventually, I’d like to replace the walls and ceiling, but that would happen way down the road and I would like to include extending the space and adding an egress window as a part of that.  Until that happens, I’m just planning on painting the paneling and wallpaper.  I am not a fan of painting wallpaper, but we’ll just rip out the walls eventually, so it won’t do any harm to paint over the crazy stripes. As of now, I’d like to paint the paneling a pale blue-gray and the wallpapered areas creamy white.  I’m also thinking about removing the dropped ceiling to see what we’re dealing with.  It might honestly look better exposed and painted painted, even with all of the ducts and pipes.  That would likely involve some electrical work, though, so I’ll live with the dropped ceiling for now.

And the floors.  Oh, the floors are the biggest issue.  They are impossible to clean with old carpet glue and foam stuck to them and that drives me nuts.  I’m also nervous about what might be in the glue and foam, particularly asbestos.  I’ve honestly felt a little paralyzed by that possibility and it’s prevented me from doing any real work in this basement.  So, I finally bought an Asbestos Test Kit, scraped up a little section of foam and glue, and submitted it to find out what we are dealing with.  If the test comes back negative, I can scrape away the glue and foam and then prime and paint the floors.  They would feel fresh and clean and would look worlds better.  Based on scraping up a test sample, it will be tedious, but it scraped up easier than I thought and I just used soapy water and a paint scraper.

If it comes back positive, we’ll get an asbestos abatement company to come out and make recommendations.  I’m just really hoping it’s negative so I can get down there with a scraper and start working on a section at a time.  It would be a relief to get that done.  I should get the results later this week it early next week.  I’ll let you know what we hear.

I’m already making plans for reorganizing the basement so we can set up a game table, a seating area, and some more bookshelves to make a little library nook.  It’s not ever going to be an amazing space, but it can certainly be better and feel more like a part of our home.