Gettin' the Stink Out of the Basement

Remember when the basement looked like this?

So stinkin' scary.  And when I say"stinkin,'"  I mean, seriously, it was stinkin' bad!  Some of you know, you smelled it.  For others of you who never got the pleasure... well let me tell you - It. was. foul. 

The renters that lived in the house for 10 years before we bought it had a number of dogs.  And these dogs had obviously peed in the basement many times.  You can even see the stains in the carpet in the picture above.  We thought maybe that when we ripped the carpet up (you can read more about that here), it would take care of the problem.  Nope! Not one bit, actually.  So all summer we have been avoiding the basement like the plague, but soon we will be moving in and we are going to need that space - for laundry and storage - and someday, for lounging. 

So what did we do? Well, with the help of Steve, we developed a game plan.

Step 1: Grind the concrete floor to remove the rest of the carpet pad that was still glued to the floor.  

 

So last weekend we invited our friend Cory over to help Michael grind the floors.

 We rented the floor grinder from Four Star Rental - the same place we rented the ditch witch. 

So while the girls were upstairs painting the ceilings, the boys were down stairs grinding down the concrete floors.

Here is how it looked mid-grinding.  

Then Michael swept the floor and even mopped it a little to ready the floor for the next step.

Step 2: Paint the floor with an odor-blocking sealer. 

 

 Now that a thin layer of the concrete floor was sanded off, along with the urine stained carpet pad that was still stuck to it, we were ready to paint it.  We used Kilz Odorless Primer.We chose oil-based instead of latex because Michael had read online that the oil-based is better for sealing out moisture in addition to sealing out the smells.

The Verdict:

It worked! So far, we have not been able to detect any of the old urine odors!!Woo hoo! 

And the floor looks so much better too! Bonus!

We are so so so encouraged! For about $200, we got this space back from the depths of smell hell.

Cost Breakdown:

Renting the Concrete Sander: $120
4 Gallions of Kilz Primer: $80
Not having a basement that smells like urine: Priceless




Now we can build the walls for the laundry room and eventually frame out the rest of the basement to finish out the space.  But that is down the road a bit.

This weekend will be a busy one for us - Sanding and priming the trim.  Guys, there is seriously so much trim.  So much.  Who was it again that volunteered to paint their own trim? Oh yeah.  That was me.  Idiot. (Not really, I am fairly confident we are saving a ton of money. Possibly even a butt-ton.)

The siding guys just finished siding the house today, so look for a photo update from us in the coming days! 


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