One step forward, two steps back...

This weekend, while Kel was working on reinforcing our staircase, he found a piece of rotted wood. Upon closer inspection, he discovered that the bottom piece of wood where our once brick wallpaper covered wall stood, was ninety percent rotted through. Apparently, the hole where the wall sat on the basement floor was not lined with cement. This meant that for the last fifty odd years, it's been sitting on top of moist soil, slowly rotting away. Conclusion? Kel took down the bottom part of that big wall and relined the slit in the ground with cement. And of course, if this was happening on one side of the stairs, it was also happening on the other side. This meant he also had to remove that wall as well. The stairs to our basement is now free standing, with no walls or rails on either side. It opened up our basement even more, but is definitely tacking on extra work and time.

View from our front door looking down:
(Yes, that's Kel and his dad we see in the basement)

View from the bottom of the stairs (in the basement):

View from the top of the main floor: