Couldn't get any yuckier!

First, let me thank everyone who e-mailed words of support for my efforts to find the lost Klein screwdriver. Shortly after my last post reporting its loss, I found it. Right where I left it. With the dog grooming tools. Not where it was supposed to be, mind you, but there nonetheless. Now for along overdue update on home restoration.

To help me avert disappointment my wife and best friend, Liane, often occasions to remind me that my projects, however well intentioned and prepared, will inevitably take five times longer than I anticipate. Words of wisdom that come from years of experience. So it should come as no surprise that my latest projects have taken much longer -- about five time in fact -- than I would have expected. Thus my explanation for lack of recent posts. I've been in the basement peeling back more layers.

A few months ago, when we were looking at this house with an eye toward buying it, many people familiar with the property had one comment in common. They all said it would take a special buyer. After tackling the most recent items on the honey-do list, let me say I'm feeling about as special as they come. Removing what was, at one time years ago, wall-to-wall carpet from the front porch might have seemed a fairly simple and straightforward task. So it was that I set about to yank it up and get it in the dumpster. What I didn't anticipate, of course, was the completely disintegrated black foam backing that had separated from the synthetic fabric as I pulled. Black powdery dust that went everywhere. Scraping it up only revealed a layer of petrified glue sitting atop several layers of old paint. Somewhere under all of this, there are nice tongue-and-groove porch boards, but just getting the deck to the point where we can walk on it will consume more than one shop vac filter and several more dust masks. Five times longer.

Anyway, I got all the carpet up and about two thirds of the black stuff scraped off and vacuumed up so we can at least get from the porch steps to the front door. The rest will come up in a day or two. After my back and knees recover. Showering up that day I decided this has to have been about the yuckiest job yet. Worse than the gross stuff piled up behind the shower in the basement. Well, maybe a tie. That one was pretty disgusting.

But no. There is yuckier. The next day, in a breathless effort to top up the second 30-yard dumpster before it got hauled away, I pulled the dark brown/gray paneling off the east wall in the basement. Underneath, the once clear plastic sheeting had melded with damp, moldy pink Fiberglass insulation. Hiding behind all of this were countless creepy crawlers. Weren't they surprised to see the light of day! They're all evicted. Dispatched to the dumpster along with the moldy 2x4 studs. Now most -- but not all -- of the stuff we want to get rid of downstairs is gone. The main task now is to get busy with the bleach sprayer and the shop vac. Paging Mr. Clean.

Here's a picture of the east basement wall with the paneling removed. It shows all of the studs and a few insulation bats before they were taken away.