The Minton Family.com

Helitech finished the basement on Thursday. Today we spent the day taking all of the stuff back downstairs. It was a long day.

Bill started off making some more shelves in the back room to put boxes on. Then we started carrying stuff down. It took a while, but we got it done.

Now the front room is starting to look normal again. The only things left to go down are the computers. They won’t go until the carpet is laid.

Hopefully we will get the carpet laid and cleaned within the next couple of weeks.

They’re all done. The basement should now be waterproof. Awesome isn’t it? Now, no water in my basement will ever get out!!! Wait a minute…that’s not what I originally had in mind!

Helitech came and went, and it was fairly uneventful for us anyway…I can’t really speak for them. They left at around 1pm today (I didn’t get home until after 5pm). I did notice however, as you can tell by the picture below, that they got a little sloppy at least once.

Damage

I’m not quite sure what they did there, but it wasn’t good. I haven’t decided if I’m going to call them about it or just try to make it not so noticeable. When my computers are down there you really won’t see it, but if that’s still there when we go to move, I’m sure the new owners won’t like it.

In any case, we have of course taken pictures of the finished product, and you can check them out below.

Almost there! They’ve gotten the material almost totally layed down, they will be in tomorrow to finish up, pour the new concrete, and clean up. So far they’ve been very professional about everything they’ve done. Helitech seems like a first rate company. I’ve uploaded more pictures for you to check out when you get a chance.

Also, the bad pipe? Mike Williams Plumbing came out and got that fixed for us in a hurry. This is the third thing we’ve had them out for, and they are also very curteous and responsive. You can take a quick look at their handywork in the picture below where they replaced the rusted pipe with a new plastic job.

Well, it’s day two and they finished breaking up the concrete today. They also found a major plumbing problem. As you can see from the picture of the bottom of this pipe:

it’s totally rusted out on the bottom. This I’m sure was the cause of some of our problems, but not all of them. In any case, any water coming from the kitchen sink was going right under the basement floor. (Once Jackie reads this, it’ll just give her another excuse not to do dishes!).

Day 2′s pictures are here:

I’ll keep the site updated with pictures and progress as Helitech progresses.

The work has begun! Helitech showed up today (an hour earlier than expected) and began breaking up the floor on the perimeter walls. So far so good.

They were very polite and careful not to mess the house up any more than necessary. They layed plastic up the stairway, and on the floor in both the kitchen and foyer. This allowed them to make trips outside without tracking anything on our floors. They also hung plastic in the doorway of the basement to limit the amount of dust that made it upstairs.

Below are some pictures of what they’ve done so far.

We went to visit my family in Chicago this weekend. We had a great time. Jada enjoyed walking along Michigan Ave. We took her into stores for the high maintenance woman…like Nordstrom’s. She may grow up to be a city girl! We also went to FAO Schwarz, which is a really fun toy store. I am sure that Jada will have Grandpa buying her toys from there when she is a little older.

Unfortunately we didn’t take pictures while we were there. We were too busy talking to think about it. Next time, I will make it a priority to get some pictures

Thanks to good old Microsoft and their built in support for multiple monitors on the newer versions of Windows, I’m now running a 21″ monitor, and a 19″ monitor side by side!!!

Click the image below for the view you wish you had!

Dual Monitors

Billy is teaching me how to add pictures to my story. Here is one of Jada. You can click on the picture to go it in the Family Gallery.

Jada

Jada had her 2 month check-up today. She is in the 90th percentile in weight and height. She got 4 shots…2 in each leg. She was not very happy after that.

The doctor said that her “goopy eyes” may not clear up until she is close to a year old. If they remain really bad, she may refer her to an opthamologist at 6 months (at the earliest) for possible surgery on her tear ducts. Hopefully they will clear up before that point.

We go back for her 4 month check-up on August 21st….she will be almost 5 months old!

According to the National Earthquake Center, there was an earthquake around Evansville, IN today. It registered 5.0 on the Richter Scale and was felt here in central Illinois. I didn’t feel it, but apparently others did. I would imagine that Southern Illinois felt it since they are so close to Evansville. You can go to the National Earthquake Information Center to find out more specific information and updates on the quake.