Recovering from Waterproofing A Flooded Finished Basement!

You haven't heard much from me lately because I've been dealing with the aftermath of a flooded basement! Again!  And we just renovated our laundry room and finished basement in August! 

We were relatively lucky though - look what the storm did to the house across the street from us!  (Click photo to see it full size)

The fire dept. and tree guys were there all day & night chopping that oak up.  I was amazed the damage wasn't worse than it was.  These 80 yr old houses were built quite sturdy!

So back to our basement...here's our "before and after" pictures:

BEFORE - our finished basement has the laundry room, a decent 2nd spare bedroom & TV area, & a Lego area for my husband.  The door goes to the laundry room (Click Photos for Full Size)

AFTER / DURING WATERPROOFING

We called in a company to suck up the water and do basement waterproofing so this can't happen again.  I don't know which damaged the basement more..the water or the waterproofing!  This is almost the same view as the above... the window & pipes are the only thing that let you know these pix are the same place!  Note that the drywall was cut all around too.

They had to jackhammer the entire perimeter of the basement to put in a french drain and 2 sump pumps that connect to our exterior drainage system.  Every closet had to be partially or fully emptied. Everything was moved to the center of the floor and "covered" to protect it from dirt and dust.  NOTE: Covering stuff with plastic didn't protect it! -  If you ever decide to waterproof your finished basement - EMPTY THE ENTIRE BASEMENT FIRST!

We took a lot of stuff out of the basement and filled our attic, garage, dining room and sunroom. But if I'd known how filthy everything would get, I would have packed it all up and moved it out.  Even if I had to get a POD or sacrifice my living room and guest room. We have to take everything out anyway to replace all the flooring - (again - we just did that in August!), fix the drywall, and Repaint (yet again).  PLUS I have to clean EVERYTHING that was covered with dust. I mean it is a THICK layer of dust.

So forgive me being quiet for a while...life's little ordeals have shifted my priorities!  But I do have a bunch of neat ideas lined up to share with you when I get time...so stay tuned!  In the meantime...here's more before and after pix of our laundry room & waterproofing pains.  We aren't done yet...but will share more pix when we have the situation restored. 

BEFORE

During

Digging the trench around the basement perimeter...

 

Laying the drains - that black liner you see there - is now sticking out about 4-6 inches around EVERY wall...so we have to build a custom baseboard to cover it.

If I'd known the result would look like this and we would have to do so much work after the waterproofing...I'm not sure I would have done the waterproofing! 

I might have just put a stone floor in, lifted everything off the floor, and gotten throw rugs that I could pick up whenever it rained.   

 

More During Waterproofing Pix

There are the steps down to the basement and the inside of a storage closet.  The stuff that was "protected" ALL has to be cleaned. I had my donation bin and gift bin in this closet!!! 

Here are some of the damaged carpet and buckets of mud removed from basement during waterproofing.

I'll be back with more Neat Living Ideas & Solutions when I get my own Neat Living back!  : ) 

All the best,

Comments

[Sandra Renshaw]

Hi Ariane,
Love your blog. I've been reading for awhile. Sorry about your basement ordeal. My experiences are different, but similar. It takes a lot of energy to get the house back to where it was!
Sandy

[Jessica Duquette]

Oh, my goodness, honey! Wow. I guess you are "paid up" for a while now, hunh?

My heart is with you.

hugs,

jessica

[Wendy Piersall :: eMom]

OMG Ariane - I FEEL for you!!! WOW. So sorry you had to go through all that! :(

Wendy

[Beth Dargis]

Wow, Ariane! I am so glad everyone was safe. I AM SO SOrry you had to deal with all that mess. I'll bet everything will look better than ever.