Basement Progress

We are actually making progress. We are getting somewhere. Stuff is getting done in our basement. Perhaps this ridiculously cold weather is proving to be worth something after all! Realistically we had hoped that we would be outside enjoying some beautiful spring weather however, mother nature seems to still be confused what season it should be so we are attempting to seize the opportunity to get stuff done in the house. Our basement has the sheet rock all hung, taped, and textured (yeah it is ridiculously hard to take pictures of taping and texturing work, but trust me it was worth every penny to have that part done by professionals - not to mention it would have taken Marc and I no less than 12,001 times longer than it took them). So now we are onto priming/painting and flooring. 

     The original plan was to hold out on the flooring and just deal with the cemented floor, however, a few weeks ago at Menards, during their 11% sale, I conned Marc into just going for it now, while everything is already out of the basement, I mean really - do we want to resettle everything into the basement and then with a newborn or a toddler or older kid be trying to finish the basement. Not to mention most of the things for the basement are currently beautifully stacked in what will be the nursery. So here we are doing the basement floor and watching copious amounts of youtube videos in attempt to figure out what the heck we are doing and how to install flooring. Thank God for people with way more time on their hands then us or people who are passionate about making youtube videos about everything because our house would be in shambles if it wasn't for people like this. 

      In all honesty Marc probably does the bulk of the work - he really knows how to do it. My job: keep the house cleanish, entertain the puppy (who really isn't a puppy any more), check in on our growing chicks (yes, there will be a chicken post coming in the nearish future), keep Marc fed, the dishes done, the laundry clean and folded, put down the blue under layment that goes under the flooring, tape the under layment seams, and make the cuts to the wood with the table saw that Marc says he needs. He is good at putting the boards together and making sure they are all tight enough and making sure that they all have the seal that they are suppose to have. Every once in a while I get promoted to holding something down while he tries to get something in place, but for the most part Marc has been doing most of that. I think he is really enjoying the project actually (which is good because we still have a lot of basement to go - we'll see what he thinks about this project in a few weeks - we have a ton of basement to cover). I think he actually chose the most complicated room to start with (unknowingly though) because this room has a HUGE walk in closet (that I think is going to become my craft nook) and the room is anything but square. The other room that will be another guest room is totally square and has a little closet, so hopefully this will make it a little easier. Then after that it is onto the hallway and then the great room.

    Today I am stopping by Menards (they are seriously going to know me by name by the time this house gets done) to pick up some clear varnish/something to put on the beadboard/floorboards and I am going to start painting those outside as soon as possible so that we can get those pieces put up as soon as they are dry. So the flooring isn't technically done but hopefully the laying of the floor part is actually the time consuming piece and the actual putting up of the last pieces goes pretty quick. We will just have to make sure we cut the pieces to size, which I am hoping won't be too hard, not to forget I am getting really good with a table saw!

    The other complication about this project is we don't actually have electricity downstairs hooked up - it is all just roughed in, so what light we have is just some work/flood lights that we have brought in from the garage. My mom is coming up this weekend to help with the priming/painting of some of the rooms/ so that will be nice, as soon as that is done, I am going to call and get the electricians back to come and finish up the electrical work so that we are back in action with electricity downstairs. Other things that will need to be done at some point: tile the bathroom floor, finish installing the toilet/shower/sink/vanity, hang doors, and add shelving to the closets.