That's pole, pole (pole-eh, pole-eh), not pole pole (as in our house almost fell down because of a rotten pole). Got it? I thought that the most used phrase from my trip to Tanzania (meaning "slowly, slowly") is the best descriptor of our house currently. Our plan of fixing the walls, then ripping up carpet, then refinishing the floor, then moving in has been derailed. Basically, we need to fix everything behind the walls (some pipes, some wiring, adding insulation) and that has kept us from sealing them up. If we don't seal them up, we can't rip up the carpet. If we can't rip up the carpet, we can't refinish the floors. You get the deal. We have also been out of town for a bit and well, just procrastinating. When we don't post, the blog hasn't died, our work time has ;-)
Anywho, here is the update. The deck is currently being totally ripped up as we still are waiting for the 14 tons of dirt to arrive so that we can keep water out of our basement. Once we get the dirt, we will rebuild the front deck/steps so that we can have a front entrance to our house. So, we are waiting for dirt to get here. Here is the front now:
Look at the bent post. This was holding up the foundation by the front door. Why do you think it was sinking? The post on the right is the new post we put in. There will be another one next to it.
The other adventure of the moment is finding siding to match our current siding. We have some rotting pieces and our siding is historically protected. So, we have to have new wood milled to match our current siding. I worked on getting that priced out today. Once we have that siding and can make sure that the area around the stairs (where the massive air conditioner was/the stained glass window will be) isn't leaking. Then, we can rebuild those inner walls/closet. So, we're waiting for siding and also to see about getting lights in those closets.
The good news is that we finally figured out where the leak in the laundry room was coming from. After a hose test, we discovered that the actual window (around the bottom and around the window pane) was leaking. This also caused water to leak into the butler pantry cabinets.
Nice white caulk on this window where it was leaking
Area under the window
Lovely water damage
Cabinets where there is a leak.... uh, and some ugly curtains left behind
water damage... imagine that?
water damage in the cupboard..... not to be confused with the Indian in the Cupboard. What a great/not socially correct book.
The bad news is that we also discovered more termites and they have started to move down the new pole. We are waiting for the dirt to get here so that we can treat for termites (you need the dirt in place).
I also ventured down to the basement to take some pictures of the ceiling, which used to have wood covering it. Here it is now:
There was a ton of soot under the wood, likely from when the boiler was still coal burning. The hard thing about ripping this up is that they actually added electrical/pipes/duct work on the outside of the wood. So, bye-bye wood paneling on the ceiling, including the board from the previous post that said "I will kill you all." (BTW, there are no lights in this room now, so I was standing in the dark, aiming and taking pictures with a flash that allowed me to see a bit.... horror movie set-up anyone?)
Oh, this random bottle was on the basement stairs. I'm assuming it was discovered in the ceiling:
The last update of the day was the we stripped more out of the apartment bathroom. Here it is now:
That's all for now! Hopefully we'll get back on track and you'll see more posts. Regardless, when there is something going on, we will keep you posted (literally).
Jessica
