Finishing Touches in the Basement

We thought our basement was finished when the contractors left almost two months ago, but there were a couple things that still needed to be fixed.

1. Iron Gates
Both the front and back doors to the basement are protected with iron gates. Those gates both have locks that require you to use a key to exit - which always seemed like a huge fire risk to me. (I like the idea that you can get all the way out of your house without keys if you need to). So, we wanted to replace the locks so that you can get out without a key. The problem is that the bars of the gates are wide enough that you can just reach through, so you could easily unlock the gate by hand, which is a security risk. To solve the problem, we had an iron company come out to replace the locks and add mesh so that you can't reach through. It fixes both the safety and security concerns, even though it's a bit uglier to look at.

new iron gate is safer but definitely uglier

2. Mail box & Doorbell
We ran to the depot to grab a new mailbox, some stickers, and a wireless doorbell for the basement. Just small finishing touches to make for a complete unit.

3. Leaky pipes
Ok, so do you remember this picture from before the renovation got started? We ripped out the wall and part of the carpet, trying to find the source of a leak. We found that not only was water just pouring into the wall where the downspout from the roof hits the ground, but that the wall was completely rotted away. The contractors replaced all the framing and put up new sheetrock, but never did anything about the leak. Similarly, we found that both the front and back doors were pouring in water when it rained, because the drains would overflow.

original basement - destroyed in search of the source of a leak

huge hole to dig up the clogged pipe

crosscut of the removed pipe- more than half-full of cement

We finally called a plumber to come snake all the drains. Two of them were easily fixed, but the third by the back door turned out to be full of construction debris and cement (potentially from the contractors washing their tools off). So we had to get plumbers to come back, dig up the drain, remove the part that was full of cement, and replace. Finally, it is all done, and all drains appear to be flowing nicely (course it's hard to really tell...).

4. Get a Tenant

The contractors were supposed to finish in August, which would have been great for getting a renter in September. They got behind schedule, and didn't finish until October. With all these final projects, we weren't ready for a renter until November, which is a really bad time to be on the market with a rental unit. We posted online, and had a small stream of people come through to check it out. Finally, it looks like we finally found a good tenant who will start moving in before the end of the year! Almost a year after we started this project, our basement is finally done. We are now moving on to other projects!!