Welcome to our home … our second attempt at a fixer-upper.

And, they’re back!

The same crew that built our deck for us, is not finishing our basement.

And it came together fast – maybe too fast.

But, it’s coming along fast too – which is good.

We’re ready to be done with these big projects. And this is basically the end of them. After this, the remainder of our projects consist mostly of just some painting, shelf-building, and (ugh) buying a bit more furniture. But in all, relatively, small, easy, regular-home-ownership-type projects.  [With one small/BIG exception, which is the master bathroom … but that project is buried, way under other projects, out of sight, on the back burner for now.]

Back to the basement.

I haven’t covered the basement much on the blog because it isn’t wasn’t anything special. The stairs go down from the kitchen area, basically in the middle of the house. To the left was a larger space and laundry was in the back of the area. To the right was storage and the gym area. Behind the stairs is the house mechanics – furnace, water heater, water softener, etc. It was all one big, open, unfinished space.

Until last Monday.

But first, let’s back up to the plan.

In a nutshell: As you come down the stairs, everything to the left will be finished. Patrick will move his theater set-up into the front half of the space, while the back half will be a full bathroom, kitchenette, and table/bar area. Laundry is getting moved to the right side of the basement, which will still be unfinished, with laundry & storage in the back and the gym space in the front. We are also leaving the space under the stairs unfinished for a little extra storage and easier access to all of the house mechanicals.

It’s not perfect. There’s duct work that runs through the middle of the house, and a support pole in the middle of the space … but it’s totally workable. And, other than the duct work, the ceilings are all around 7’ high (not ideal but manageable). And, like we’ve said before – and the same was true at our previous house – although this place checked all the boxes, it was nothing like what we actually wanted in a house (us: sprawling ranch, lots of windows, fewer but bigger rooms … swoon), but it was a good investment. So we’re building what we want within the confines of what we’ve got.

We actually met with Dan way back in September to discuss the basement. And, as mentioned before, his last job got a bit out of hand (read: “build a sunroom” → full, 2-story addition, bumping out a kitchen & bathroom); so our project got pushed back and back and back. Then, in the beginning of January we got the quote. It was reasonable and less than we were expecting. We agreed. He wanted to start that week. We were out of town. Plus, we wanted to cover the layout and specifics one more time (it had been a while since we’d all talked).

On Saturday morning, Dan stopped over to cover the plan again and answer our questions.

On Sunday afternoon, Patrick & I moved everything we store in the basement to the right side and piled it up in my workout area. Then we hung plastic around everything.

His crew arrived that Monday morning.

They started framing first, and continued on through the weekend. They finished most of the framing, plumbing, can light installation, and electrical. Laundry got moved out of the way (although, not hooked up yet 😐). And, they added some ductwork with vents for additional heating down there.

The crew is here most days, and at this rate, we might have a finished basement by the end of the month! But, in the spirit of trying to document this better so I don’t post a chapter book at the end of the month, here’s the first week’s worth of work.

BEFORE:

DURING WEEK 1: