Wish you had to tell everything you've ever done to a house

When we bought this house there was some mold issues in the basement and radon issues. Owner was to fix the water and radon problem and then we did mold remediation. She got a new sump pump, installed the radon system, and then she did a water proofing and channeling (see link for a description or watch video clip: https://vimeo.com/82557018)

Cost her a pretty penny. But I see now that to do this she had to take up the new carpet, let them work, and dig up the interior foundation the whole perimeter of the house, put in a channel, concrete over everything again and then wait for the concrete to set  and then call in the carpet people to put down new tack strips and restretch the carpet. 

What I really don't understand is that she had quotes in 2006 and 2008 to get this work done - well before selling her house, but waited for it to be caught by the inspector to do anything about the radon and mold. I'm sure the real estate agent told her to fix it right because if we backed out of the sale because of mold and radon, it would mandatorily have to be disclosed to every prospective buyer and they would see it and her price value would plummet (unfairly much so). 

Probably the reason we have had no radon or water problems since.

We discovered all of this by seeing new concrete all around and then my husband and looked up our paperwork from the sale to discover what exactly it all meant.  At least I haD this paperwork. We have no history for nearly everything else.  Like, there is evidence of there being either glue down tile or glued down carpeting in the basement from before. It was cleaned off very well, but it has a stain of where the glue used to be.  Is that asbestos?  Was it removed properly if it was? Who knows!  So weird when you think about it that all the history of the house does not need to be disclosed when you buy and sell. It's a huge investment done mostly with little known about the investment!

What does this have to do with weight loss?  Well, I scraped up foam, wet/dry vac'ed the entire area, and then scrubbed it all with a thick bristled brush.  The boys took up the tack strips and deal with the nails in the concrete.  Oh, and my husband and I  moved all the furniture and boxes and boxes of stuff from one side of the room to the other, so a lot of schlepping of stuff too.  Day two of exercise with a purpose!

Scale loved me this morning too!

Weight loss reboot: 5/18/15
Down 18.8 pounds

Here's one way to burn at least or over 1500 calories in a day!

My favorite type of exercise is exercising with a purpose and that is exactly what I did today. MINIMALLY it was a full 3 hours of cutting, lifting, rolling, pulling, bagging, etc. Now, full disclosure, my son carried these up the flight of stairs and out of the house. I just worked on the actually getting it to the point of throwing it away.

Then, there was some time of sweeping, cleaning out the cat boxes outside, and more such things. My gizmo said that this should be roughly 1500 calories  for 3 hours. I don't know if it's accurate, but it was exhausting, but I got something USEFUL done... much better than hopping around the gym.

Extra "bonus" I guess is that on this super hot day, I was in the coolest room of the house, so at least there was that.

These are the before photos - taken a couple years ago - but it looked nearly identical now (remember you can always click on a photo to make it bigger):

This is what it looks like now - after ripping up 680 square feet of carpeting:

Plan is to put down new flooring - this:

These are vinyl floors, but special ones that are good for basements AND shock absorbent and often times used in gyms and exercise facilities. Here's how they look cross section and underside.

Put in ceiling panels in the frames already there. (Ceiling tiles used to be there, but were removed before we moved in when we did mold remediation). I'm thinking these drift ones or these plain ones:

Paint the white walls two tones as we have a chair rail going along the whole room (probably gray on bottom and light blue on top - undecided on what color the chair rail should be).

And then move to reorganizing the last third of the basement which needs a bit of weeding through and restacking/organizing.  The old butler's pantry we removed from upstairs when we moved in and made that pantry and half bath into a full bath on the main level.

The peninsula part of the original kitchen we took out when we remodeled shortly after moving in. Yes, my kitchen as late as 2010 had avocado colored formica countertops!:

And the shelving we have for storage: (and it doesn't look this tidy right now)

I know the carpets look fine in the photos but they were full of stains and despite cleaning them several times, we couldn't get them clean. Plus, they were remaining from when we did mold remediation... and carpets are mold traps. Our basement has been dry since we moved in as the previous owner added a second sump pump and did some other drainage work, but that mold was probably still in the carpets.

Plus, for ping pong, aerobics, etc, a  smoother floor is nicer. So, I'm excited we got the worst of it OVER WITH!!!

I'll keep you updated - tomorrow is remove the rest of the foam (very little stuck) and the tack strips which will be a nightmare as they were nailed into the concrete!!!

I'm tired though, can you imagine?