So a week ago Friday hubby finished the living room. No pictures of the finished product yet. I feel like such a slacker, but once you hear this story, I'm hoping you'll understand.
Let me start by saying that Seattle has seen nearly 5 1/2 inches of rain so far this month and over 2 inches alone fell this past Sunday.* OK, so crazy rain in Seattle is not out of the norm this time of year, but that's a LOT of rain.
I got up early on Sunday morning to prep for our annual tree trimming party. I started some laundry, put the cheesecake in the oven, made some coffee, and finally woke hubby up so he could run and pick up the bagels. When he came back I asked him to check out the basement because I had spotted a little water on the floor at the base of the stairs (on the West/back side of the house). I followed him downstairs and was pointing out the small areas of water. He proceeded toward East area of the basement (under the front side of the house) where we both spotted the pool of standing water. Half of the basement was covered in about three inches of water.
Hubby went into action like super hero! He threw off his jacket, picked as much as he could off the floor, and started
Shop-Vac-
ing up the water. He dumped about a gazillion 5-gallon buckets of water in our laundry tub.
It's a known fact that I don't handle crisis very well (hysterical laughter and such), so I just went upstairs and kept prepping for the party. I know, crazy, but the party must go on. Not long after, I heard our neighbors helping hubby assess the situation. Apparently he went across the street to ask for help removing the wet carpet.
I have to take a side note to explain how AMAZING our neighbors are. Every time we have an problem, need a tool, or break something, it feels like they are on standby with the perfect fix. Sunday was no different. Hubby knocked on the door, a little
whimpery, asking for a hand with the rain-soaked carpet. They spent the next 2-3 hours helping hubby. This included hauling dank and soggy stuff out of the basement, digging trenches in the side yard and loaning us this magic concrete putty that plugged several cracks in the foundation that were the
culprit of our own little
Sunnyside swamp.
It was exactly 1pm when hubby heard the sound of multiple footsteps upstairs. Thankfully, he was at a stopping point in the cleanup and came up to take a shower and participate in the party.
The rest of the story is pretty simple. We had a party. It was fun. The neighbors made it (after they got cleaned up too)! It wasn't until the party was over and everyone was gone that hubby and I went downstairs and I nearly fell into a puddle of tears at the site of what was our basement.
There are no pictures of the flooding, the cleanup effort, or the party. But I was able to stay home on Monday and help hubby with more cleanup. Check in tomorrow when I'll post the basement demo pictures and the insane wall issue that we found!
*hubby commented on the fact that I was researching all the rain stats as I was writing this. I said, "Dude, I'm a serious journalist!"
We took another quick trip down to Portland to visit family and got some garden inspiration at an awesome Portland Farmers Market.
Thanks to the cold summer in Seattle, this bounty of awesome green tomatoes is from our very own garden. We finally gave up on all hope early October and harvested what we had.
The good news about the green tomato harvest is that it inspired an entire southern meal with friends and family complete with fried chicken, collard greens, southern beans, cornbread, and fried green tomatoes.
With the house paint finished, hubby had time to tackle the rest of the outside projects, including installing a new landing on the front porch.
Before we knew it October was almost over and it was Halloween. Pickles really wasn't psyched about dressing up. It could have been that the costume we borrowed from our neighbor was a few sizes too small....
We doubled our number or trick-or-treaters this year. Some of our favorite kids from Ballard and Mt. Baker even stopped by.
In November it got too cold for outside projects so we moved onto the dining room/living room projects. We touched up the paint all around, added a darker color to the ceiling and installed a picture rail in each room.
Our first snow of the season came the week of Thanksgiving.
Hubby worked pretty quickly to get the rest of the insulation installed in the back entrance - still a work in progress.
And finally, the biggest excitement of the year, the Great Basement Flood of 2010, which prompted us to rip out the last remaining 'bedroom' in the basement.
I hate to end the post on a picture of the empty basement so I'll share the last picture of 2010 - before we took our Christmas tree down. 
I'm actually hoping that 2011 is a little less busy - and we can keep it all to one post. Cheers and Happy New Year!
New windows on the back porch.
Replacing soffits and fascia.
Determining a paint color.
New gutters.
First attempt at a garden.
A much needed Hawiian getaway in May.
A Minnesota wedding weekend in July.
A quick August bike ride from Seattle to Vancouver, BC with the boys.
Hubby started the demolition with the door and west facing wall, moved onto the north wall, then to the east. The last wall he removed was the south facing wall where the window was. This is where it gets weird. He was expecting a window opening similar to all the others in the basement. What he found was different. I'm not even sure how to describe it other than - at one point in time it wasn't a window. But we're not sure it was a door either. I don't think the picture below does it justice but we're pretty convinced that this is the cause of some of the basement water damage. Wood, water, and CMU, not a great combination.
As we tried to imagine why and how and why some former homeowner had created this patch for the wall, our neighbor Craig took a more creative approach. Convinced that the door must have been a gateway for evil leprechauns - he created this clever little image.
