The basement at the house is a bit of a horror show; small dark rooms, icky vinyl floor and spiders, lots of spiders. And well, now things are a bit worse in basement-land... We knew there had been some funny business at some point with the house since the drive-dowwn garage had been bricked-up and the driveway levelled, all to make the basement larger. The funny business was confirmed when a neighbour mentioned that they'd gone to bed one night and woken up to see the work had been done. Funny indeed...

Now, this wasn't a major surprise since our house inspector had mentioned damp issues in this one wall, but still, y'know, in my head at least it's all butterflies and sunshine. We set too ripping off the drywall (well, after a brief trip to Home Depot to pick up the right tools since garden shears weren't quite doing the trick, lol) and you can see below what we discovered. Basically one layer of bricks, 2" x 4"s and some insulation (and a whole lotta damp) is the only thing holding up the driveway. Oh, and they'd kindly left the old wooden garage door frame in place too - Thanks.

Our contractor came over last night and gave us the lowdown - Removing the concrete and asphalt from the front of the house, digging down and removing and replacing the wall with something that's actually structurally sound and, oh, waterproof. Lovely.