The Laundry Room

Does anyone really love to do laundry? If so, I have yet to meet them. I have owned two homes in my life and in both houses the washing machine has been in a yucky basement with a cement floor and it was miserable and dreary to spend much time there. This picture shows where I have done laundry for the last seven years. Not so pleasant. So how wonderful would it be to be able to design my new laundry area?

As we worked out the plans for our partially finished basement we knew we still had to have the washing machine, dryer, deep freezer, sump pump and dehumidifier in the room somehow. Everything stretched along the far wall and I assumed there was nothing we could do. It wasn't until our contractor suggested building a laundry closet and reconfiguring things a bit that we realized we could have a "real" family room down there. Coming into the room you'd likely not know what was behind the louvered doors.


Tucked in the corner is everything neat and out of the way.

Best of all, I got to think about how I like to do things and Bob the Builder (that's what the kids call him) figured out how to make it all work. My favorite thing is the two levels of drying racks and shelves so that I can easily hang laundry. I'm proud to say one day this week I ran three loads of wash but only one load in the dryer.

For once my new laundry room is exactly the way I'd want it. I won't go so far as to say I enjoy doing laundry now, I haven't completely lost my mind, but if you have to do it, you might as well enjoy the space you are in!

The basement!

This series of pictures shows the complete transformation of our basement in the last six months. December 12th we had a devastating ice storm that resulted in a 5 day power outage and a flooded basement. (Read about it here if you forget!) When the insurance company came to assess the damage, we discovered extensive mold behind the paneling. (For juicy mold pictures look here!) This is what the basement looked like, an odd layout of five rooms with nasty dark walls and a cement floor.

This is what the basement looked like after they ripped everything out in January.

And this is what it looks like now! We never intended on putting a family room in the basement, but somehow it all fell into place. Our new installed generator that turns on automatically during a power outage will prevent any future water damage!

Stay tuned for pictures of my favorite part... my laundry room!

Stay Healthy Saturday

Without a doubt, the biggest thing we did this week to stay healthy was to get the horrific mold out of this house! It was truly shocking to see underneath the paneling and see the extent of black mold back there. I'm happy to report it's all out of here as you can see from these pictures I just took. Our contractor also just discovered there has been a leaking pipe behind one of the walls for quite some time that he just had to repair. Add that to the list. (Notice how I didn't have a Frugal Friday post this week?)

What else did we do to stay healthy this week? Jason went to see his doctor and got a battery of bloodwork. The conclusion after the appointment was exercise, exercise, exercise for stress management and overall health.

For the past two weeks I have also planned meals with a new strategy. My goal is to have two seafood, two vegetarian, two meals where meat is a small part of the dish, and one normal meat meal. We came pretty close this week. We actually had three vegetarian, one chicken, one seafood and one beef. The seventh night was breakfast for dinner and we had pancakes, eggs and bacon. Just two slices a person. We aren't angels, we can't go completely cold turkey, but I'm trying to just live moderation and see those times as treats maybe once a week. I have yet to plan my meals for the coming week, but we'll see if we can stick with it.

I guess what it comes down to this week is no mold, and less meat.

The basement, what you can't see

This past weekend we had to empty our basement in anticipation of the demolition that would be happening down there this week. You can imagine what our upstairs looks like now. Every cabinet filled, things under beds, plastic bins in hallways. This will be a long process. I went downstairs this morning at 8am and took a few before pictures. This is just a simple wall that was in the tool room, or workshop. Looks ok, right. Jump ahead to 10:30 am when I took this picture below of the same wall.

Nasty, isn't it? The mold is disgusting and in every single room. I'm so happy we are doing this. Tomorrow we have a guy coming to meet with us about installing a generator. The first power outage and flood was a fluke. The second made us determined that there wouldn't be a third!