Lots of Little Things Add Up to BIG Things

Well, a lot has been going on these past few weeks. Chris is off in Colorado, hunting elk. I hope he gets a big one!!

Before he left, we tackled at leaky faucet. I found the leak while he was gone on a previous business trip. He walked me through how to shut if off in the basement. What a pain, though, the same pipes feed the downstairs bathroom where the kids brush their teeth every day.

Anyway, after being off for about a week, and after his return, I walked past the 300+ pound soapstone sink and noticed there was still some water running. Hmmmm. Two thoughts crossed my mind. 1. How does that happen? and 2. This is not a good sign.

We removed the sink... yeah, all 300 pounds of it. Chris put a 4x4 beam underneath and jacked it up with a 2-ton jack. Then we gently and carefully moved it to the laundry room. It felt like it was going to topple over every. single. minute. It was nervewracking!! I was scared. Chris thought it was fun. (warped, I know...)

The stench of mold coming from behind the sink was overwhelming! The wall was black and green. The drywall was soaked. We poked until we found the dry parts, then cut and started pulling. Then we just ended up gutting the wall. The drywall had the consistency of packed wet sand.

 The faucets came out of the holes in the wall, above the shink. This is where the leak was. The wet spot had extended about 8 inches above, and two feet on either side, as well as down to the floor. The adjacent wall to the left, underneath the window, was also wet.

Underneath the wet drywall was equally wet wood clapboard. Underneath that there was no lathe, it just backed up to the plaster wall in the bathroom. My guess is that it was an outside wall at one point. The other walls are stripped to the wood at the moment. That will come down too. But, at least the wet stuff is gone.

The water had dripped down and the floor boards are rotted near the wall, as it part of the 8x8 beam underneath. This is an old leak, I'm sure. Making the mold worse is that fact that the baseboard heating is on that wall, keeping it nice and warm. So we had to rip up the floors too. There was old tile, over subfloor (overzealously stapled about every 2 inches), over particle board, over wide plank wood. Seriously- that many layers of flooring??? I doubt we can save much of the floor, at least on that end. It's rotted.

 Chris is standing on particle board, and that the subfloor to the right. The tile had already been removed.

We found another spot of mold on another wall. We were surprised. We can't figure out where the moisture would have come from at that particular spot. We also found another corner that is dryrotted- we'll dig into that when Chris gets home from hunting.

See the spot near the floor, to the right of the door. Black mold.

So, now this little "utility room" has had to become top on the list for fixing. That's annoying- we have other projects to tackle first!

Like the barn, which was damaged the other night in 60 mph winds. It was a long scary night, and I head the siding rip off. Ugh, just add it to the to-do list.

What's on your to-do list?? I'm going to add "hit the lottery" to mine.

hugs- Lee