It’s like our house found out we are blogging about it. “Oh, you have a blog? Well I’ll just get painted the wrong color…that’ll be a good story. Oooh, let’s flood the basement. GREAT story!”

Saturday we got up with the plans of Parker working in the mudroom in the morning and then heading to Home-a-rama for the afternoon/evening. Sunday, he’d finish up in the mudroom and we could call it d-o-n-e. Instead, we spent much of the weekend dealing with a flooded basement 🙁

It rained during the night Friday night into Saturday morning. As Parker went down to our lower level to get some stuff to hang in the mudroom, our daughter followed and noticed that our lowest level was flooded. Ugh!!!

Soooo, instead of heading to home-a-rama around lunch time, we went and borrowed a pump from my parents. Luckily, there was only maybe 3 inches of water? We were able to pump the water through a tube out the window of the lower level and down the driveway. Once all of the water was pumped out, we stuck some fans down there to dry up the surface puddles that remained.

Our lowest basement basically consists of a weight set, of a bunch of plastic tubs that hold memories of our past, some cardboard boxes filled with random things, Christmas decorations, and some odds and ends like rugs from our old house. After all of the water was out, we needed to go through the tubs that were on the bottom row to see if anything got wet, go through the things that were not in tubs but in cardboard boxes, and take care of a few things that weren’t ruined but just needed dried. The thought was overwhelming, especially with two kids who are too curious to just let you do your thing. So, we ignored it and worked in the mudroom and then went to home-a-rama at about 5:00…ha!

We returned home about 8:20, put the kids to bed, poured a few drinks, and got to work. Actually, we kind of had fun. I mean it was a dirty job, but we got all of the gross stuff thrown away and made plans for actually using this space. It felt good. We are the kind of people who can benefit from a minor basement flood (one like this – non destructive but gets your butt in gear). Its not like our basement was a total disaster, but there are plenty of things that don’t need to be down there. They need to be in the trash or donated. I mentioned in this post that we want to start using our lower level (the mid-basement) for some of our kids’ bigger toys. I now feel like we have momentum to make that happen (it also helps that the mudroom is very near completion).

On Sunday Parker worked on the mudroom some more, and again when we put the kids to bed we headed down for more work in the basement. We went through all of the plastic tubs that were on the bottom row. Luckily only a few things were wet, and it was nothing important. In the process, we came across some fun memories and I was able to get rid of some things that we don’t need. Its amazing some of the stuff you find….even stuff you never intended to keep but it somehow ends up getting moved from house to house blindly or your parents clear it out of their house (don’t blame them) and it ends up getting thrown in the basement to be gone through at a later time. So, the only thing flood related that we still have to take care of is the weight equipment. It sits on black gym mats. We’ve moved about half of the set and half of the black mats, but we need to move the other half to dry the floor underneath.

So our plans for this basement now include moving the weight set to a different corner, moving our eliptical down there, removing insulation (starting to fall anyway), and using the space to work out and let the kids ride bikes, etc. in the winter. We will also continue to pare down our possessions. However, you won’t see me getting rid of all my memories 🙂

Now for a mudroom teaser: