I was asleep in my bed, having spent about six hours redoing the necklace straps and adding a new backing and border to the piece (gosh it's gorgeous!), and my plan was to hop in the shower and pop over to Bellefonte after I'd had my tea. HOWEVER, as I cowered under my covers about four hours before I wanted to wake up I suddenly felt the whole house shake and heard noises louder than I'd EVER HEARD BEFORE. Yep, the crew from our local Basement Waterproofing Gurus had arrived! It felt like there were 50 of them but there were only two, and sometimes five.
I laid there, not at all ready to leave sleep and start the day, and as I listened to the jackhammer doing its thing I also felt the vibrations, almost like those beds your parents would give you quarters to put in to make them vibrate (see the movie Bonneville for a great example; nice hotels have them too : ) AND that is one of my FAVORITE MOVIES OF ALL TIME for grief recovery and a bit of beauty, poignancy, and humor. So I'm lying in my bed thinking I really have to use the bathroom, but I'm sort of afraid that while I'm on the throne the whole thing will fall either straight down into the basement where some of the men are working, or maybe through the wall and right outside on the sidewalk for all the world to see! Welp, Nature was calling and there was nothing I could do but take a deep breath and risk the relocation of myself along with the throne with all that jackhammering.
Not only were they inside the house in the basement, hammering up the concrete to build a beeeeeeautiful trench that goes across two walls, they were also hammering up two recessed outdoor stairwells that had French drains installed back when the house was built in 1964. The French drains had never been totally cleaned out and redone, and it was high time since we had experienced many floods in the basement every time it rained heavily. Rob has spent many an hour shop vacuuming the water up, setting up fans, and I purchased a rather expensive dehumidifier to keep the water out of the air down there - it's a true basement, not exactly rec-room potential. Just needed a bit of TLC, which it's finally getting in spades. So these pros are here to completely dig up the French drains, rebuild them, and re-pour concrete, as well as trench for the sump pump in the basement AND take care of three gutter areas where they're trenching and putting in PVC to channel the water from certain gutters, under the sidewalks (to avoid ice flows in winter), and out into the yard, where the soil and grass can accommodate the overflow. BIG JOB!
We only had a few floods when we first moved in, and we could keep the basement pretty dry in-between storms. But as my Lovies who live in Central Pennsylvania know, our weather has warmed somewhat over the years, and we get rather a lot more water, plus we've had some reeeeally WET years, so the floods were becoming more frequent, hence the pros coming in to help us get a handle on it.
So I made it through the
shortest of morning bathroom time, no long, hot shower, no lovely time putting on my makeup, just toss the hair into a clip, get dressed in the dark and get outta there quick as a bunny! Had my tea in the living room with my pup shivering and all atremble on my lap with yet more noise that he couldn't understand (cause
we just got the roof done, and that's another story!).
While we sat there, I read a sweet little book written by the grandfather of a friend of mine, called
Warm Hearts for Cold Noses, by Edward R. Dionne, Jr., VMD, which is a true delight and also something I'd happily suggest for your reading pleasure or a gift for anyone who adores animals. Note that the author is the grandfather of my favorite spirit medium, Desiree Denis, and the father of my favorite past life regression expert, Terri Denis both of whom can be contacted at
Spirit Guidance and Healing, where there's a host of WONDERFUL information on the classes they offer and the variety of their spiritual expertise you can tap, should you be so inclined.
So I sat with the pup rereading the same page several times (not due to the content of the story, rather due to the incredible decibels we were privy to) while my whole house shook and we did too. It was GLORIOUS! Because for all the noise and craziness, it's gonna be FIXED BIGTIME! And this really does excite me.
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The trench along one of the basement walls.
Not done yet, more tomorrow. |
So the pros will be back tomorrow to finish the trench and all the hookups in the basement and they'll pour concrete over it so it'll be all clean and will work for years, YAY!!
I said to my husband as we peeked out the windows every so often throughout the day, and stuck our heads out to say thank you to the men working so hard, "They must eat a LOT!" Because just like the roofers, I've never seen anyone work so hard with such heavy materials in all my life. It would kill me in a minute and they go all day six days a week. Wow. So we're getting them some donuts tomorrow because I want to FEED THEM! And they can eat ANYTHING THEY WANT because they work it off in five minutes flat! I might be a bit envious of that, but my little body was never made to do all that heavy muscle stuff.
I have no idea what protocol is on house renovation but we feel like we should be here, especially when they're in the house, for the pup's comfort (he was so brave and SUCH a good dog all day) and also to answer any questions or whatever that might come up.
I think they'll be two more days, but we might try to pop over to Bellefonte the third day once they're just working out on the back patio and no longer inside, and we'll be taking the pup with us XO He loves to ride in the car.
It's kind of amusing because all summer, for months and months, the city has been jammering up the roads in our neighborhood and installing new stormwater and sewage drains, and we've noticed a very fine layer of concrete dust that seeps into the house constantly even with the windows closed. They just finished up and moved along, about a day or two before OUR guys showed up and now I can actually say I think I know the almost metallic, dry flavor of concrete dust in my nose and throat, even though they of course installed plastic all around the indoor work areas. It's worth it. I'm using my saline spray and putting all kinds of respiratory healing herbs and spices in our stew and chicken pot pie of the past couple days, and it's working so far. Glory be! If it doesn't kill me I'll be thoroughly pleased, and I'm surrounding these hardworking guys in all the best ever blessings and thanks a heart can beam out!
It is wondrous to get really specialized people to help you take care of things that have been nagging at you with the home ownership thing. And sometimes I even pat the walls of the house and tell her, it's okay, we're just lovin' you back and you're gonna be just fine. Trust the process.
So that's this week with more to come. Will update as we go. But you know? I'm just so grateful for people who have this very specific knowledge and are willing to work that hard to help us and to feed their families. There is a place for everyone in this world. And that makes me just so happy.
I invite you to share some of your renovation stories in appreciation of those who can do what we cannot XO
Namaste,
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