The BLEEPING Basement

After the 3rd worst winter in Erie history and the coldest and rainiest July EVER we are lucky to be alive!!!! Unfortunately the basement just didn't survive.

Below are a couple of pictures of the basement pre-flood (the only pictures I had on my computer were from Lexi's B-day). All we had done was throw the kids gaming machines, TV and some couches down there. The carpet was pretty ugly but super soft and functional.

On July 1st as we got into bed we had a thunderstorm roll in and all night it just poured... the thunder and lightening were so spectacular that neither me or the dogs slept but a wink. When I rolled out of bed only about half the backyard was under water. It started pouring down rain an hour later and the water level began rising.



Lexi had basketball practice that morning and without thinking we hopped in the car to take her. As we pulled out of the driveway a friend of hers called last minute asking for a ride. I said yes, she lives about 15 minutes away across town, and we started out passing one stretch of road that was nearly flooded all the way across 4 lanes. I started thinking it wasn't such a good idea to be driving. I reached the zoo, which is about 4 miles from our house, and found the road shut down with water levels reaching the windows of cars parked in the zoo parking lot. We turned around and came right back home! Later that day Lexi told me the reason her friend needed a ride was because her grandpa's car got bogged down on the way to pick her up for basketball in the flood waters and he actually had to be rescued by the fire department!



Water levels just kept rising and soon the backyard was completely covered and the front lawn and street were also under water, about up to knee level. Like a good blogger I started taking pictures not thinking anything could be flooding... like my basement!
Below is a picture of the front yard and street, you can see the water level creeping up to the neighbor across the streets front lawn and you can't even tell there is a street between us.


This next picture is of water running from the street towards our house, we had a mini river that ran all the from here to the backyard, still I wasn't even thinking of the basement.

I exchanged some comments with my neighbor from the safety of our porches and as I was turning to come back in just happened to glance at the window well on the side of the house... which of course was full of water!! I ran down stairs to find water pouring in, the carpet was just saturated. I had to hurry and go to Sears (which was the closest store, just a couple of blocks away) to grab a sump pump (not the only one there, fortunately got one of the last reasonably priced sump pumps) and came back and threw it in the window well. I then proceeded to try and suck up the water with my carpet cleaner. After an hour and a half of doing that I was exhausted... the carpet didn't feel any drier so I brought a couple of fans in and took a break. After a few days, the carpet was still soaked, even the stairs, and the smell was horrific. I decided to tear the carpet up! So, all by my lonesome, I ripped up and carried out the soaking wet, stinky carpet. I do have to thank Nate for cutting the pile of carpet I threw onto the driveway up into strips and rolling it up nicely for the garbage man to pick up!

After tearing the carpet out I really didn't know what the heck to do so after letting the basement dry out I decided to paint the floor thinking that would be a good short term, relatively cheap, fix to the problem. Mind you after about a week of the kids hanging out in our living room we were ready to boot them back down stairs!


The girls picked out this lovely pepper grass green and I found some coordinating colors (briquette, bridal rose and chamois cloth) and we made over the basement. The girls did help me with 1 coat of paint on the walls, but the rest was all my sweat, tears and a plethora of cuss words. I will NEVER again be tricked into thinking painters tape is worth a damn... biggest scam ever in my opinion! The stairs nearly beat me.

I still need to do a little bit of touch up on the stairs where the paint peeled off with the tape (I am looking at probably two more coats). I think with this humidity here it just takes way to long for things to dry and I may have been a little to impatient... still blaming it on that scam they call painters tape though!

Liv has allowed her love sac to hang out downstairs for a little bit so she could put her train back up in her room... it might only be here temporarily. I would really like to put a bed down here for the girls to use for sleepovers and guests some day!

I am really pleased with how things turned out, I was a little worried about the color palette at first. The only thing that needs to be done now is installing baseboards. I am not adventurous enough to tackle that kind of project on my own and I have run out of time this summer anyways, who knows when we will get to it. But at least the girls have a place to hang out again.