Pictures

This post is going to simply be pictures. I wanted to put out an update, but my nights lately have been very late and I'm starting to feel the fatigue, so I'm posting pictures of this past weekend's work in the basement: fixtures in bathrooms, painting doors and trim in the basement, and hanging doors and installing door knobs on the basement doors. Here are the pics - enjoy!

Main floor bathroom:

Basement bathroom:

Ceiling tiles being installed in the basement.

Painting doors!

Painting door jambs and trim:

Door knobs!

Stairwell getting a fresh coat of paint:

More updates and pictures to come soon!

Coming Together

The basement is coming together! Over the last few days, Chad and I put two coats of paint on the basement walls, and they look great! It's really amazing how much a paint job can change the whole look and feel of a room...or in this case, a whole floor...:) All of the walls are now consistently one color, instead of two colors of paint and then a bunch of paneling. Why was paneling ever popular, anyway??

We had some very important visitors on the day we painted!

Chad's parents: Arvid and Marj

My Grandma Bernice:

And my Mom and Dad:

Chad also started painting the room we call "the office" in the basement. As it does not have egress windows, it is not a legal bedroom. If it were me, I would use it as a nice office/computer room. We decided we were tired of buying paint, so we checked out what we had left from painting our house, and we had a whole gallon left of our living room paint color. So, the basement office now has Natural Bark on the walls! It really changes up that little room. We considered painting it the same as the other walls in the basement, but also wanted to distinguish it as it's own usable room. I think that was a good call...and hopefully someone will come along and find themselves computing away in there one day soon!

Dad and Chad are both working at the house today. Chad has finally been catching a break at work and able to afford a day of vacation here and there without being too overwhelmed when getting back to work the next day. So today's agenda sounds like some work on the basement stairwell (which will lead to more, you guessed it, PAINTING!). Chad will put the second coat of Natural Bark on the office walls, and baseboard and trim will be installed in all basement rooms. We decided to just trim out the sheetrocked walls and not the paneling walls. However, we'll see what I think when I look at it. If it looks choppy not having trim on the paneled walls, I might advocate for doing it all. But if it looks okay without, then we're going to leave it. It doesn't have to look great...just okay...haha! :)

I believe Dad is also planning to install fixtures in the bathrooms: towel bars, toilet paper holders, etc. I purchased some pretty new towels to hang in the bathrooms when we are ready to stage! I also have a few different ideas for some little pretty things to set around the house to help it feel a little more homey.

I'm hoping we are only a week away from cleaning time! Once the house is cleaned, we can do a little staging, and then it goes on the market! *GASP* I was beginning to think just the thought would never get here...:)

The Basement Blog

Much is happening in the basement, and we are hoping to make much more progress over this coming weekend. The basement paneling has now all been primed, and it is ready for paint! We have chosen a nice, neutral tan color to put on all the walls of the basement. The white primer covering the paneling really brightens it up down there, along with the new flourescent lights installed by the electrician. The basement was pretty dark before, but now it shines! The walls are now three different colors: dark brown, light brown, and white. Getting them all one solid color will really help tie the basement together!

We also had the light fixture, mirror, and trimwork installed in the bathroom. Woohoo!!! We have decided to go with chrome fixtures so that we could reuse the faucet that was already with the sink. It's a very nice faucet and would have been a shame to toss it out. We are also going to go with the same white trim throughout the basement, so that the house has consistency on each floor. And speaking of flooring, the bathroom linoleum has also been installed, and it looks great! We went with the same flooring as the upstairs bathroom and the kitchen. Again, consistency was our goal. The sink and vanity are also now set in the bathroom, and Dad installed the door as well!

Chad fits in the doorway!

Work has also been going on upstairs! All the painted doors needed to be hung and also needed door knobs installed. The bright white doors with the oil rubbed bronze fixtures really look great!

Dad also installed the thresholds in the doorways after I got them stained to match the wood floors, and he made a mirror for the bathroom that looks absolutely fabulous! I am wanting one if we ever get to remodel the bathroom in our home house...:)

Important work has also been going on outside of the house! Dad and Kyle spent a day cutting back and trimming some of the crazy trees/brush growing outside in the yard. I think over the years, a lot of seedlings dropped and sprouted off new growth and no one ever took the time to properly care for it. So what we had was a lot of branches going hither skither and up through the links in the fence and such. By cutting back all that brush, the yard looks amazingly larger! Chad also spent an hour last night cleaning out the gutters on the house. While up on the roof, he also noticed that C&R Plumbing (the plumbers who tried cutting corners and fooling us), never caulked the vents they put up into the roof! So we will need to climb back up there and fix that too.

Today Hander Plumbing is at the house to finish up the bathroom. They will be hooking up the sink, the shower, and the new toilet that Chad and I purchased last night at Menards. We initially went in looking at toilets from a flush power and a round bowl only perspective. That was, until we ran into a friendly elderly man in the toilet aisle. He was out shopping himself and was walking by with a ladder on a cart. Chad thought he just looked like he wanted to talk, so Chad greeted him with "Good evening, sir!" And that opened the dialogue. We explained that we were looking to purchase a new toilet, and he left us with some good advice: make sure that you buy one with a deep enough bowl so things that aren't supposed to hang in the toilet, don't! Haha!! So, we got a good laugh, but also looked to make sure we didn't get a toilet with a shallow bowl! :)

Tonight and this weekend we will be painting walls in the basement, installing ceiling tiles, and working on finishing up the cabling in the basement. I will be super happy when these walls are all finished being painted, because I am really getting tired of paint! :)