Weekend Plans

Last night was full of prep work for the weekend at House #2. 

And now...here's the main event this weekend:

It's a Federal Pacific.  Bad. Bad. Bad. (as I have been told) So it's gotta go.  But we have new GE model waiting in the wings to fulfill its electrical destiny. 

Also on the list of "Things That Have Got To Go" is this box:

 

For the untrained eye, like my own, this junction box doesn't look like much. However when you open it, the trained eye will say "What in the world were they thinking?!?"  It is full of splits and splices, wire nuts and electrical tape.  Oh and did I mention that we only happened to find this junction box by chance?  It was hidden inside a wall.  Inside a wall!  An electrical junction box inside a wall.  A boarded up, nailed up wall, with no access panel. *sigh*  Even I know that is bad.

 

The entire laundry room was an addition to the house.  A bad addition.  The person who built this room was no builder. He would have been better off using Legos. 

 

So Walt Kowalski will be working on the electrical and I'll be in the basement o'fun. 

 

 

 

 

Scrapping, scrubbing, and smearing. 

 

You can see the mold growing on the ceiling.  Green mold.  Not black.  But I'm still wearing a mask to clean.  Hello my friend bleach.

 

Then scrubbing and on to painting. If I get the scrapping and cleaning done this weekend I will be doing good.

 

The basement was full of water when we bought the house, but the basement walls were painted with a latex paint.  What we think happened is that when the thieves stole the copper pipes, they cut the pipes and left the water continue to run. (Uh hello, they are thieves! You really though they were going to turn off the water? Silly me.) The floor drains took a lot of it away except for the outside edges against the walls where it was an inch deep.  The water wicked up the walls and created mold.  Lot of mold.  White fuzzy mold.  Now the paint peels right off. 

 

This sounds bad, but is actually better than our first expectation, which was the that basement was taking on water when it rained.  We mopped up the stagnant water, brought in fans to dry it up, added a little good smelling cleaner, and there have been no major leaks since. 

 

We also put the outside downspout back in the drainpipe.

 

Things I can expect this weekend:

 

1. I will be working in the dark because Walt Kowlaski will turn off the electric.

2. Wearing white clothes will be my best option while cleaning with bleach. 

3. I had better find my rain boots before I start scrubbing.