Behind The Baseboards

This past weekend, as I started looking carefully at the wall in the center of the basement and preparing the replace the moulding and baseboards, I kept finding black mold and mildew.

I ended up mitigating the mold with a complete demolition of the wall. Like I said yesterday... mold mitigation the hard way.



See the black stuff and discoloration at ground level? That's all mold that was living behind the baseboards. We hated that slatted door, too, so we took the opportunity to junk that.

BEFORE


AFTER


Way back when (Knock on Wood from August 3, 2008) I spent a bunch of time patching drywall in one corner of the basement. That corner is pictured below.

Right behind that corner... remember there's a big hole in the foundation where the water main comes into the house? And remember how that hole once filled up and overflowed with water (Water Water Everywhere from September 7, 2008) before we got the gutters fixed and graded the front yard?

As one might expect, that flood - and maybe repeated flooding before we owned the house - took its toll on all the material at ground level.

BEFORE


AFTER



That little piece of blue wall behind the pile also eventually came down.

PS
School started again yesterday in town. On a run last night, we saw Tom Brady on the street. No, not *that* Tom Brady. Look at the bottom picture here: I Mean, *Right* from July 15, 2008.

PPS
Electrician coming today!

Also, the window guy came yesterday. See All The Races In for background. We have 18 double-hung two-sash windows in the house, plus three tiny windows in the basement. The guy guessed our windows are 20 years old; and we thought they were pretty new! Ha.

To get new windows with updated technology (a u factor of 0.30) all over the house would cost just shy of $5,000. Each big window would cost $249, and the basement windows would run $169. We're in discussions, but fixing up the back porch and the front stoop seem to be more pressing issues.