The Basement!

I am happy to announce that as of this week, our basement remodel is done!  There are still a few final touches that will need to be done, but it's not going to stop us from moving things down there and to start living in it!  In fact, we already have!  Eddie loves going downstairs!  He runs around patting the walls, the stairs, the couch.  It's super cute.  And Sammy is warming up to joining us down there as well.

Before I launch into what was done, I have to say a huge THANK YOU to Uncas for all the time and work he put into this project.  It was a huge undertaking since I was little to no help (I'm cooking a baby).  He sacrificed many evenings and weekends down there, which was really hard on the whole family.  We did make the decision to "out-source" a few of the tasks which turned out to be a great decision.

Here are some before pictures:

We (when I say we, I mean Uncas) took down all the wood paneling, removed the drop ceiling, fixed water damaged frame, sealed all holes going to the outside and insulated the walls, rewired new lights, and hung sheet rock.  We paid our neighbor to put in new windows and to do all the mudding and taping.  Then we painted.  And last week we had new carpet installed and some new furniture delivered.

This project took us longer than we (I) wanted.  It was stressful since the room that Eddie will be moving into was basically storage while this project was on-going.  We still need to clean out that room and move our "office" down to the basement, but unfortunately on Friday Uncas threw his back out!  As a result this weekend we didn't make any progress on that part of the project.  BUT, the basement is done and functional and I am so pleased with the outcome.  Please excuse the after pictures.  I took them the other day and you can tell that it's Eddie's playroom.  And quite frankly it seems silly to pick up the toys for a picture when they'll be all over the place in two minutes flat!

We still need bookshelves and toy storage for the basement.  Eventually we'll probably put a tv down there too, but for now it's comfortable and open and we really enjoy spending time down there.  To see pictures of the whole progress of the basement - check out the album here.