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! :)