So, this was the cause of it all. It sounds like I'm complaining, but I guess I'm really not...after all, 173 will have a fresh new laundry room when it's all over. The other side of that is...I just wasn't mentally prepared for it! Anyway, these are the boards that got eaten by some kind of bug rotted out and needed removal before continuing with fixing the basement walls:
Here's a closer look...those boards crumbled in my hand:
Cleaning out the sawdust dirt:
All cleaned out:
I'd forgotten how much concrete we laid when 173 got a new basement floor. And every bit of it was made one bag at a time, and carried down from outside in 5 gallon buckets.
The wheelbarrow is under the back porch, and in this weather there was no way in the world I was going down there to pull it out for one bag of concrete. This $5.95 solution was the perfect choice!
And there she is...one hour later the floor is fixed.
Here's the "artistic" shot:
Now, back to cementing the walls, re-routing plumbing, building the new laundry room, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc...