27) The Basement Funeral

As if on cue, the weather swiftly took a turn from unseasonably warm to record cold stretches. If it had not been apparent when the lift was returned that there would be no more rentals until the spring, there was absolutely no questioning that anymore. Even if not officially yet, winter had made her presence known.

You were hopeful that the majority of the gutter leaks had been fixed or at least improved. You’d later learn that only three of the five were working as they should be, but that the north wall did in fact appear to be drying out. You’d snap a picture every few days and compare it to the first one you took several weeks ago, scanning every shadow for signs of moisture. You weren’t entirely sure, but you swore that you were definitely seeing signs of drying.

Before Jackie had left the two of you had finished up the last of the demo (at least for the forseeable future). Another mold discovery had led to more building material removal, the chiseling of plaster and the silver lining of a beautiful hidden brick arch where there had once been drab faux wood paneling. Now the only evidence of all those hours spent toiling in the basement were three large piles of rubble.

“I’m thinking about asking for help getting the rest of the shit out of the basement,” David said.

“Why’s that?”

“I want to get the ball rolling on getting the joists in and the floor finished and I can’t start jacking everything up until the floors are cleared… also at this point my back probably doesn’t have it left anymore for another two tons of dumpster filling.”

“You think we’re going to fill another dumpster?”

“I do,” David said, “So what do you think…? Are you open to asking for help?”

“Well we definitely need to get the last of this shit out of the basement and my arm is so fucked, I don’t know if I’m going to be all that useful… and with Jackie not here now… I’m not opposed.”

“I know that we’re trying to save money, but at this point, time is money too… and I think that if we can hire a couple extra hands that we can easily clear everything out in a day or two.”

“Ok,” you really didn’t need much convincing. You needed the basement liveable ASAP… you were very worried about how quickly it would become far too cold for the kids to continue sleeping in the sanctuary. They were fine now, but would they still be warm enough when it was 6 degrees out? “So what do you have in mind?”

“Mike next door said that he and his roommates could give us a hand on Monday.”

“Make it a date,” you responded, “let’s get this basement emptied.”

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A few days later Mike and his roommates showed up promptly at 11:00am after their early morning shift at work had ended. What you had assumed would take a full two days was quickly completed in two hours. The five of you shoveled the chunks of plaster and piles of dust into five gallon pails and the large wheelbarrow. Taking turns pushing the wheelbarrow and lugging the buckets all the way up the sloped hill to the gaping maw of the freshly delivered dumpster where you did your best to hoist the heavy buckets over your head. Your arm was absolutely throbbing, ‘this was your last big push’ you kept telling yourself… ‘hang in there,’ and by and large you did, keeping up with the four men. You couldn’t quite carry as full of a bucket load as they could, but no one mentioned that. You refused the help hoisting the buckets. Last thing you wanted to do was slow anyone down.

When the basement was emptied and your husband had left to pay the neighbors you found yourself alone in the large empty room. The six windows, three on each side allowed a soft light into the space. On sunny days large beams of sunlight would pierce the basement in long slanted rays, on overcast days like this one, there was more of an ethereal glow. The cavernous space was for the first time since August 1st, completely clear of all debris. Fine particles of dust were visible in the gentle glow of the windows; not as individual separate specs but rather as a translucent gathering that seemed to draw attention to the filtered light as if an entity in and of itself, a silent witness to the end of something big.

Hours. Days. Weeks. Months.

All that time. All those days that you refused to feel defeated; that you told yourself when the hits kept coming, one after the other… after the other… that quitting wasn’t even an option.

Doing.

Finishing.

Making it work.

That was the only way you ever even imagined that this would end.

Sure there had been disappointments but they were fleeting… this wasn’t a burden being here or working on any of this… it wasn’t easy… but it was the opportunity of a lifetime.

For a while when you had first started the demo, one of your old neighbors began making comments on your church’s TikTok account…

“Money pit… HA!

You’ll move back in no time.

Way too much work… how long before you sell it?”

You ignored his words…and you noticed that the further along you got, the less he commented. Now it was very clear why he had stopped… this place looked fucking gorgeous. The massive space was dripping with possibilities… and YOU… you and David and Jackie had brought it from a dank mold filled, damp, nasty smelling disaster to this… this incredible space with the old wooden planked ceiling and the stone walls… those gorgeous stone walls and the hidden brick chimney and entrance archway and even the foyer leading into the basement from the kitchen entrance… everything looked incredible.

And it all looked this way because of YOU.

The walls were nearly dry. The old cracked plaster was gone. The stink and damp air now smelled clean and crisp.

You walked to the north wall, admiring the stone, you ran your fingers across the 130 year old mortar and you smiled, and then without warning, you were sobbing…

You were feeling all the feelings… joy, gratitude, accomplishment, confidence. You might not have noticed it right then and there but you knew that from this point on you were never going to be the person that thought that she was incapapble of big things, that you were all done thinking so poorly of yourself and your abilities…

You were the woman who helped save a church from decades of severe water damage. You were the woman who took a 130 year old beloved community cornerstone and etched herself eternally into the history of something far bigger than herself.

You sat down on the floor. Head in your hands. And you cried, and you cried, and you cried…

You didn’t know it then but you were mourning.

You weren’t the woman who doubted herself anymore.

Above: this was the basement before we started demo and one of the two spots of mold that we knew existed... we had no idea just how bad everything was at this point.

Above: This is the basement after five months and a good cleaning... next up we put in a chair rail, bead and batton, paint and finish off the windows... so close!

Top left was the basement on July 31st 2025. Top middle was August 1st 2025. Top right was November 2025.

Bottom left close up of wall in November. Bottom middle is after a few weeks of drying out. Bottom right is the wall all dry.

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I had NO idea that I was going to get so emotional when we finally finished this demo. We had toiled for hours in the basement; Jackie, David, and I. But it wasn't just the basement demo, there were so many things that in some way or another were connected to the demo of the interior and the water mitigation as a whole and they were all just as much of a priority as it was to remove all the moldy wood and drywall and insulation and the most difficult (physically and mentally) task of them all: the plaster removal.

During the demo there were also the lift projects: working on leak repairs... some of which were directly affecting the basement, repairing the gutters, David almost plummeting to his death and that whole fence thing...

Then there was the construction of the dry riverbed and the complete excavation and waterproofing of the foundation.

Mind you... every single one of these projects aside from about half of the lift work... all started with two little sections of mold on some drywall that we assumed we'd cut out of the wall, replace and be back on our merry way in two weeks tops. At that point we knew that there were some water issues but we could really only actively see any evidence of anything in the laundry room.

Before we had bought the church we had scanned all of the real estate photos and took note of the most obvious fixes that would have to be made. We had at that point planned on starting with the sanctuary so that we could start turning a profit renting it out for events. We had a budget and an attack plan and we did that for just about every single room until the money ran out. We wrote everything down on a piece of paper and had the agreement that we would stick to the budget because we had so many projects to tackle...

Except that in the case of the basement... there was no budget... not that there wasn't a budget, we only had so much money for renovations, but no budget in the sense that whatever it cost to get this space liveable, was what we were going to have to throw at it until we had nothing left to throw at it... at which point we'd either be in a great place... or we'd be leaving with our tails tucked between our legs and hope that at the very least we could make our money back...

When the basement fuckery started... we basically tossed the list right out the window. The basement and the roof were THE only priorities and NOTHING could really move forward until both major issues were resolved.

Had I known when we bought this place what I know now... would I have still bought this place? No. But it's not why you think.

I wouldn't have bought it had I known what I know now because I would have doubted that we were even remotely capable of tackling a bohemeth of an undertaking like this and I would have never given myself the opportunity to prove myself wrong. NEVER.

Once the basement went from bad, to worse, to 'holy fucking shit are you fucking kidding me what in the absolute fuck'... well... we had no choice but to keep going. When I was in college taking a typography class we had to pick a quote and basically make a poster out of the quote. I chose:

If you are going through hell... keep going.

And I had to laugh that quote routinely popped into my head as I'd spend hours only to chip away at a tiny section of plaster with a rubber mallet and chisel (my arm was getting too bad for me to weild a sledgehammer at this point)...ahead of me some 45 feet of 11 foot high walls and another entire wall... What else could you do but laugh at that point? At the same time though, and this is the strange part, I never gave it any thought that we weren't going to get this whole crazy situation under control... there were of course things that worried me about the project within the project... air quality, mold toxicity, rotting joists, structural integrity, David plummeting to his death to name a few... but as a whole... I guess I just didn't have the luxury or the time to wonder if we could... we just kept on fucking trucking... we just... well... we did.... all we could do was to do...

So when we finished the demo... when we finally got to the point that we were no longer ripping apart our home and pushing eight tons of it uphill into four separate dumpsters... but rather at the point that we could just start cleaning and rebuilding... the relief, the pride, the overwhelming sense of "fuck yeah!", and even some sadness that I had sold myself short for far too long... was too much and I unwittingly lost my shit.