Where I grew up, we had basements. They rarely flooded. Some were even finished into spare rooms, with TVs, carpeting, or best of all, a pool table. Here in New England, most of us instead have cellars, where water seeps through the walls after heavy rainfall (some even spurt).
And so, under the house, confusion. Mold. Dampness. Leakage. Not the order of a basement, with dry walls and solid floors, but a cellar. With small garden snakes and a sump pump. Rick, our carpenter, says you find the soul of a house there. Its support. The wiring – we’ve removed many strands of stray threads overhead, each staple a bear of resistance. It wasn’t the same as the secrets we found in the kitchen walls, the 1928 newspapers, during that renovation, but secrets all the same. You sometimes read about bodies being buried in the cellar. Instead, we have trenches along the wall – and maybe some stray tree roots. I need to replace the bottom stair, the one broken from rot. And soon, I would hope, the sump pump itself with something smaller, more powerful, and more reliable.
Yes, an old New England house is always a project. Even one only little more than a century old.
Jnana's Red Barn 