Before and After (and the return of photos!)

After various technical difficulties and constraints on time, I am once again capable of posting photos on the blog. And what better photos than some before-and-after's. I always loved these--maybe for the same reason that I preferred the Mr. Rogers' episodes where he visited somewhere outside his house and explained how something worked. When he went to the crayon factory, for example. I think behind-the-scenes is endlessly fascinating, and that includes finding out what's under your carpet.

Which leads to the pictures. After a few months of "funky smell" in the basement, my parents pursued it. Long story short, it turns out a heating duct installed under the house had rusted through. A pool of water had collected and grown things, and those things were blowing into the basement.

This precipitated filling in the heater vents with cement, and while they were at it, an update on the basement. So this is what we started with:
And here's the same view without the kitchen cabinets, carpet (I remember tap dancing on that floor when I was little), ceiling:
Drywall and paint:

And at the other side of the basement: