My office tends to get the odors first -- I am right over the area that gets damp -- whether it be from sweat from the hot water tank or water oozing in from the foundation.
We used to think that the smell was due to the fact that when we weren't home, we put the dogs down there. It's actually not a gross basement -- one half is quite dry and Peter has his desk down there, the furnace has its own room, and it's always warm and toasty. The dogs choose to do down there all winter long because it is so pleasant. But all of a sudden it seemed that the dogs were peeing and pooping down there during the days we would be gone for hours on end, and so ... it had to stop. So they are forbidden to go down there.
And yet .... it continues to smell.
I am very susceptible to smells -- I can smell someone smoking a cigarette in a car driving by me with all windows closed. No, seriously.
So to have my house smell from a nasty basement odor is unacceptable.
Of course I googled it, and I found out that if you put out bowls of vinegar, it would help with the smell. This actually worked. But then, the smell figured it out or something. The smell grew stronger than the vinegar. It metastasized or something. It's the cancer of smells.
And I can't stand it. I truly can't.
On another note, Peter and I built the glass blocked wall for the upstairs shower today. Let me tell you how that went. I was beat this morning -- I didn't have to get up to take anyone to school and everyone left so the house was totally and completely silent. I didn't even open up my eyes until 9:00. And then ... I closed them and went back to sleep for another hour! It was awesome. My theory is that if you can sleep that long, then you needed the sleep. It felt great. So at 10:30 I was sitting at my computer sipping a cup of coffee -- I don't drink coffee very often, but on those mornings when I feel like I can't get going, it tastes delicious.
I was in my jammies, and Peter said, come on, I need your help. Now I was psychologically prepared to do this wall -- but I wasn't actually ready at that very moment. I thought he was kind of saying he needed my help at that actual moment. I went upstairs, coffee in hand, and he was mixing up grout in a big bucket. I put on a pair of old shorts and a shirt, and ... oh wait, I forgot something. The sun had started to come out, and the kids wanted to have friends over for dinner. I said that sounds great -- and texted a bunch of people to see if they wanted to come over for a BBQ. Then I put down the phone and went upstairs.
We started putting the block in, grouting between each one, and I actually got quite into it. I didn't use tools -- I found that using my fingers to smooth out the grout between the blocks was easier. About halfway up I was great. The second half was much harder. My stomach was grumbling, when I would lean down to pick up fallen grout and then stand up, I would get dizzy. I was like, WHAT IS GOING ON? But this is a job that once you start, you can't stop, because you have to get all the block in before the grout hardens so that you can get it to fit. And we had to take the second to last row out and make the layer of grout less to fit the final row of block in. It was getting brutal.
Then Charlie came up with my phone. Here I had texted a bunch of people at 11:30 telling them to come over that night, and then promptly left the phone on my desk. And for the first time I looked at my watch. It was THREE THIRTY! Geesh. I hadn't eaten anything but half a cup of coffee -- hmmmm, no wonder I was getting dizzy!
Anyway, all crazy, crazy, crazy. And the worst of it all, my hands are RUINED. They are so dry I keep putting cream on them and it makes no difference. They are making me bonkers.
But the wall looks amazing. And I guess every time I shower I can examine my grout lines and know I did that. With no food, no drink and no tools.
Damn. If only I could fix the cellar smell.
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