Why DIY? In 2013 our family downsized into a smaller, older home in an effort to pay off student loans and get our finances under control. A few short months after we moved, the entire basement in our "new" house flooded and had to be completely gutted. Suddenly, we found ourselves living in a 2 bedroom 900sqft house as a family of five. That may not sound too bad to some, but for us it was hard! We were living and schooling in a very small space. It was especially frustrating that we had no experience in home improvements or renovations and no money to hire anyone that did. We tried our best to learn how to mitigate, insulate, drywall, tape, mud, texture, replace vanities, lay flooring, and everything else that was necessary to get our house back into a functioning home. We did pretty well for our first time, but as the year unfolded we realized we had more problems than we thought.

 

We are a military family and my husband was deployed at the time, so I was trying to hold down the fort on my own. The basement continued to flood in small areas and each time I  simply threw down some towels turned on some fans and waited for everything to dry out. Thank the Lord it always did. I had no idea where the water was coming from and I was equally clueless that my towel and fan solution was basically akin to put a band-aid on a broken leg. But, the flooding wasn't nearly as bad as the first time, so I figured it couldn't be anything big. Fast forward to the spring of 2015 and our basement completely flooded AGAIN! At the time, we were out of town celebrating my husband's return from deployment and received a call that our basement floor was floating. Can you imagine? It was one of the most stressful times for our family. Once more we had to tear out the entire basement, and yet again, we were living in 900 sqft of space. 

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Fast forward a couple months, and we came to find out that in order to fix our flooding problems we were going to have to install a complete french drain system with three separate sump pumps. If you're not familiar with french drains and sump pumps, it's a huge job! We learned our house was located on top of a very high water table and hydrostatic pressure was causing the water to push up around our foundation, in fact, when we removed the first pieces of concrete for the initial sump pit, the water level was right under our basement floor. It was like we were living on our own personal little pond...but not the kind that adds value to your house! We had to pump the water out in order to install the necessary equipment to keep our basement dry. Unfortunately, we couldn't afford to hire a contractor to do the work that needed to be done, so once again, we taught ourselves to do the job. I don't know how many pounds of concrete we removed from that basement, but it took months for us to dig out and install french drains and sump pumps. In the end, we got it done and learned we could do anything if we just put our minds (and muscle) into it...we now understand why contractors charge so much! 

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After the massive job of fixing the cause of our flooding woes we had to renovate the space once again. This time we got smarter and decided to go with flood-proof material (just in case...but we never had flooding again). With each new job, we taught ourselves a little more and pretty soon the proverbial "light bulb" turned on and we realized that the things we have always wanted for our home, but couldn't afford, could be within reach if we just taught ourselves how to do it. 

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Enter the world of DIY.

 

What is Simply Hand Built? There are so many DIY resources are out there if you know where to look! Simply Hand Built is a place to share and inspire. Each of us can take what is out there and make it unique and functional for our situation. We have since moved on from that old flooding house, but the lessons we learned have stuck with us. My hope is that the projects we share help inspire and the forums help build a community of knowledge that becomes a resource to help you accomplish your DIY goals. You don't have to be an expert, you just have to be willing to learn and try something new!

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