Moria. You fear to go into that crawlspace. The cold spread too greedily and too deep. You know what you awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm: cobwebs and dust…
View from the crawlspace close to the front of the house, towards the back and the exit into the basement.
The air was cold and the wind harsh over the realm in the winter past, the Queen knew they could not survive another season like that and maintain their sanity in the process.
Winter 2014. Air flowing up from the basement and crawlspace that we tried to withstand.
She knew that the cold breath that blew upwards from Moria would do naught but cause them more grief once the Autumn leaves fell from the trees.
So at her call, an alliance of man and elf marched against the armies of spiders, and on the slope of the hill the realm was built upon, they went into the crawlspace and fought for the warmth of the Middle-Floor.
No, that is not me in that suit of armor next to Dad, but for the sake of the story we’ll pretend it is.
As they fought in the darkness, they found a terrible secret…It was no mere crawlspace, it was a tomb!
There were small animal bones all over down there, clearly things had gotten in over the years.
House and days passed, surrounded by bones, dust, spiders, and the worst danger of all…HARMLESS MOLD!
The mold was by far one of my least favorite parts. I don’t like mold, and by saying I don’t like mold I mean I reaaaaaaalllly don’t like mold and keep it away from me forever kay? Kay.
Hours and days passed and still the battle raged. The two heroes put up insulation board after board and still, the crawlspace was unrelenting.
It was fun down there, really! I totally think Dad would agree…No, nope. I’m lying. We were both really happy when we were done.
Day after day they returned to the realm from the depths, weary from battle…
Dusty? Noooo. I don’t know where you’re getting these ridiculous ideas from.
…Only to return again once they were able, determined to defeat their foe once and for all!
This was the angle Dad sat at for most of our time down there, hammering up at nails and hoping his neck might one day forgive him.
It was in that moment, when all hope had faded. that Robert, king of the realm, took up the final boards…
That was the day we finally finished it, towards the basement the slope is much lower and we could sit without stooping.
The Crawlspace, enemy of the cold peoples of Middle-Floor was defeated!
Okay…so it wasn’t quite as bad as I make it out to be. Tedious, dirty, uncomfortable, and claustrophobic, yes. Terrible, no. It took us probably about four or five days to get the crawlspace insulated, spending about two hours down there at a time. All in all, considering the size of the house I guess that wasn’t so bad? I dunno, I haven’t exactly done that before so I could be wrong. I gotta say, the mask was a must. After day one I made sure it was always on because there was dust everywhere and you kicked it up whenever you moved or slid a board around or nailed one up. Dad of course, went maskless the whole time.
What was interesting were the cans and broken chunks of glass bottles I pulled out from under there for future examination and cleaning. On top of that, on either side of the old floor furnace (disconnected and not in use since before we moved in) extra supports had been put in. There were two, they’d been painted white at one point, and they had the same decorative cuts on the corners that we can find on a lot of pieces in the house. It’s intriguing because we haven’t figured out where exactly on the house they could’ve come from but they’d definitely been used and most likely outside at some point.
So the morals of our tale? Glad it’s done so we don’t freeze as bad, glad it’s over, hope I’ll never have to go down there again. *Runs off into the distance followed by blaring Lord of the Rings music*
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I LOVE ALL OF YOU, KEEP UP THE WONDERFUL RESTORATIONS ! GOD BLESS.