The plumber arrived bright an early yesterday morning around 8:15 to have a look at the basement. Having set the alarm for 8, planning for a 9am arrival, I had only just rolled out of bed and thrown on some jeans and a sweatshirt. The plumber, upon stepping through the front door, stopped to put disposable slippers on over his work boots. He needn’t have bothered, but I appreciated the gesture. Thus armed, down we tromped to the basement for a look around.

I have discovered that, although my dad is many wonderful things and his skill at MacGuyverism is masterful, he is not a plumber. The basement bathroom plumbing is not to code and the pipes will need to be completely rerouted with different materials. For starters, we tapped into the wrong pipes, routing water from the first floor bath half inch delivery pipes instead of the three-quarter inch main trunk lines. Oops. Secondly, we used the wrong kind of PVC in some sections and the wrong kind of shut off valves in the wrong places and, finally, we used the wrong glue on the PVC (which explains the leaking). Also, we didn’t use an insulated hose for the HVAC, which makes it susceptible to condensation dripping onto drywall and causing a mess down the road. Right, then, so much for my bubble bath plans.

Thankfully, the plumber was extremely polite, delivering the bad news professionally and without a single snicker or raised eyebrow. In fact, I was so impressed with his explanations (apparently they use a new type of piping now that is crimped instead of glued and cheaper than PVC if you can believe it) that I had him call his boss for a quote to redo it for us. Had we done it right the first time, it would undoubtedly have saved a lot of money but, at this point, I just want it done. The fact that the work will now be under warranty doesn’t hurt either. Now I just need to arrange to work from home one day and then it will be bubble bath time!

Somewhat heartened by the prospect, I tackled the unfinished repairs to the wall under the basement window next. There was a piece of drywall already down there ready to be cut to size, which was trimmed up, hung, taped and mudded in short order. Next came some yard work, ripping out the rest of the old garden bed. Here’s where I got a little too clever, rolling out an old trash can to put the soil in, thinking I could just roll it back to the garage for storage. Wrong. The trash can, while sturdy enough for everyday trash, was plastic. Full to the top with soil, it was going nowhere fast. With much grunting and hip leverage, I managed to wrestle it a few feet over into the bed space so Mym can mow around it until I figure out how I want to build the new bed. The old wooden frame was completely rotted out and went straight into the trash.

On a roll now, I proceeded to cut down the 8+ foot silver maple next to the garden that was absolutely covered with galls. Once that was done, I was pretty well spent. So, after a brief trip around the house to check for wasp nests (I found five, bleh), I packed it all up and headed in for a shower and 3pm breakfast.

Although I’m a bit sore today from all the unusual activity, I did have enough energy to check the wall downstairs (the mud needs to dry out a bit more yet before sanding) and cut down the 7+ foot silver maple, also afflicted with galls, though to a much lesser degree. One, much smaller tree to go, and then I can start putting in the new garden, including the much delayed apple trees!

A plumber/HVAC technician is coming over on Saturday to help me finish up the basement bathroom issues that have been languishing for far too long. It has become abundantly clear that I will never get to it on my own and I am just so done with seeing it on the To Do list. I give up. Uncle! Take my money, please! If the morning goes well, I plan to spend the afternoon completing the reassembly of the wall I ripped out when we had the flood and, if the weather cooperates, rip out the other half of the old garden bed. And then take a long, hot, bubble bath in the finally functional basement tub. Because I would like to use the basement for more than just storage space before I die.

While ripping out the first half of the old garden bed today I noticed one of the silver maple trees absolutely covered with red bumps. A moment of panic took me straight to the autumn blaze maple next to it, visions of having to rip out and replace yet another tree flashing behind my eyes. The last one wasn’t fun and this tree is quite a bit larger. No red dots. Whew. A quick check of the other two silver maples revealed a lesser amount of dots on one and none on the other.

Truth be told, we never really liked the silver maples to begin with. They came with the house as 12″ saplings. We quickly gave away the one that had been planted too close to the house, and I used the others for testing spike fertilizers. Unfortunately, they worked all too well on the one that is now affected the most strongly with what turns out to be galls. While they don’t appear to affect the health of the tree, that tree has other issues that will eventually lead to an early demise, so we’re going to rip it out now before the job gets harder.