Carpet!

After spending time on the window trim, Jon spent several evenings and weekends installing the wood baseboard trim. Trim involves not only installation, but puttying the holes created by the nails, paint, and caulk (to close any gaps between the baseboards and walls). We had a lot of help with the painting from Doug, Donna, & Omar. Our main motivation: to finish in time for the carpet installation set for May 31st!

Before leaving for vacation, Jon cleaned up the basement, swept, and took the doors off the hinges (Dan, who used to install carpet, told him that the carpet installers have to do this if we didn't). 

 Then, when we arrived home on Saturday night, we came home to carpeted basement! It's amazing what carpet does to a room. It no longer echos, it's warmer, and it seems finished! (almost!!)

 Above: Jon celebrating the carpet installation 

 Below: the family room area

 Looking towards the office area

 The "office"

We are so thankful to finally have the carpet installed. I cannot wait until the office items are removed from our second bedroom and reorganized in the basement, making way for the baby's room! It's been a long time coming, but we can finally start spending time in a nice clean, "finished" basement. Now we just need to focus on the laundry room and bathroom.

Windows and Trim

The easy part of the windows was installing the actual window. Now onto the time-consuming aspect: trimming them out. The old walls were panel with a very narrow space between the concrete wall and the paneling made by thin strips of wood instead of having the traditional 2x4 studs. So, since Jon had used 2x4s when putting up the new walls and drywall, he had to completely re-frame the windows and window sills. 

 Jon loves when he is able to recycle old wood taken from other areas in the basement, hence the odd colors to the window sill. He measured the windows, built a sill the could fit right into the window closing the gap between the window and drywall, then cut a piece of trim to make the nosing. So he glued and screwed the nosing into place before installing the window sills.

 Prepping the drywall around the window.

When he installed the window sill piece he wanted to make sure it was not only level but flush against the window and flush with the walls. 

Afterwards, he trimmed out the windows and painted them with two coats of primer and two coats of the white trim paint. 

I'd say a job well done!

I've Got the Power

This morning Jon and I set out early to purchase some trim needed to finish trimming out the doors in the basement. However after stopping at Elverson Supply and Lowe's we came out empty handed. Apparently nobody makes trim the same way they did in the 1970s. So we came home and went with plan 2: electrical work and baseboards. Jon demonstrated how to wire an outlet for me then let me loose, wiring the rest of the outlets in the family room/office area. 

This is what the outlets looked like when I began: 

 Jon took some shots of me working for proof that I do indeed (occasionally) help him out:

 Step one: connect ground wire with a pig tail. 

 Do the same with the other wires, put the caps on them. 

 Stuff the wires back, strip the tops of the pigtails and then make them into hooks.

 Attach the hooks onto the socket, screw it into place, and make sure it's level.

 The family room's outlets are all ready to go! 

Below is a shot of Jon working on the baseboards. This afternoon Dave Harkins (from church) came over and helped him with some gardening outside, so I was working solo for most of the afternoon. We will all know who to blame if our home goes up in smoke. Now that I think of it, we better install smoke detectors now!

I'll post pictures of the trim and baseboards when he is all done with them. Progress is happening - slow and steady! I'm hoping that we set a date to have the carpet installed for more motivation to get this basement done before Baby Mountz makes an appearance!!!

Painting the Basement

The past month has been a busy one for Jon and the basement now looks almost ready to live in. Once again I have the easy job: choose the paint colors. However, I also had to decide on the carpet for the living area which took a good few weeks. I ultimately decided on a darker brown, which I will have to show you after it is installed. For the walls a light, warm tan was chosen. The name of the paint, "Tempered Gray," is decieving since it definitely is more brown than gray. Nevertheless, I think I like it. It is difficult to portray colors through pictures, but here are some pictures of the basement walls.

 I decided to paint the trim a bright white:

Here you can really see the recessed lighting we installed a few months ago:

 The color next to the fireplace.

After the first coat of paint, Jon decided it would be best to replace the windows in the living room area and in the laundry room before progressing any further. Omar and Jon tackled that project on a Saturday afternoon. It's amazing how much of an improvement the new windows are!

In the laundry room I wanted a cooler color while keeping it light. So I went with a color called "Bay Waves." You really cannot tell from the picture below. It has a blue hue.

So now our goal will be to do the trim, frame out the windows, finish installing the doors, paint the doors, install the carpet, frame out the post at the bottom of the steps, tile the laundry room floor, and I'm sure more.

Drywall!

Having drywall up makes the basement seem like a different place! Jon initially started the drywall task with my wonderful laundry chute closet - which I have gladly been using for the past several weeks. Since this photo he has added a ledge to catch the laundry about 3 feet from the ground as well as a shelf on the wall to hold extra supplies. 

 Jon enlisted the help of his dad and his brother, Dan, to help work on the drywall. It took a lot longer than he thought to install, but he is very glad to now be working on the spackeling. Here is the few from the bottom of the steps looking into the "office" and bathroom. You can almost see the soffit towards the left on the ceiling.

 The family room portion (Ok, so Jon hadn't quite finished hanging in here...it's done now, though!).

The laundry room:

 Jon installed a small heater for me in the laundry room. I'm excited for heat!

 Our recessed lights. For the time being Jon has regular (cheap) light bulbs in there until we finish off the lights. 

The magic maker in action!

I'm getting really excited about having the basement finished. Yesterday I ordered the carpet so now I need to settle on a paint choice before Jon finishes sanding and priming. Lots of decisions!

The Basement

When we moved into our house in 2010, we decided to renovate the basement in 2012. However, due to flooding in the spring of 2011, we had to move up the planning. However, it is now 2012 and we're still renovating. Therefore I suppose we got what we wanted!

We gutted the basement, starting with the hideous carpet.

Then came down the ceiling and paneling.

To remedy the water problem Jon rented a jackhammer and, with some help from his family, dug a ditch around the entire perimeter of the basement.

After spending weeks on digging, Jon put some stones, a black cloth material, some drainage pipes, more rocks, and a plastic sheet over the ditch.

Our new sump pump! Jon dug a sump pump pit, drilled holes into the walls so that water can reach the sump pump, and added halves of PVC pipes to run the water from the wall to the ditch.

Concrete came next. The tubes are for our washer and new bathroom.

Framing has begun!

I helped out a bit. Jon would measure, I would cut, and he would install.

While we slowly framed, Jon did a lot of plumbing in order to be able to utilize the most possible space with the ceiling and to add the bathroom. Below you can see the new PVC for our washer and laundry room sink.

In the past few weeks and months our furnace cracked so Jon had to put framing and plumbing on hold to fix that problem. It took a lot longer than we thought and resulted in replacing the entire heating system. He installed a Buderas along with a new oil tank in our basement. Currently Jon is spackling the drywall. I'll have to run on down and take some pictures for the next post!

Adventures of a Laundry Chute

One of the many perks to this little home of ours is our laundry chute. In the hallway which leads to the two bedrooms and bathroom there are two closets: a coat closet and linen closet/laundry chute.

Due to the new layout of the basement, Jon decided it would be best to move the laundry chute to the coat closet, dumping the clothes right into the soon-to-be laundry room. So the work began! First, he pealed up the carpet from the closet floor and cut a hole. Below the hole there were electric wires so Jon had to move those. Then, he disassembled the old laundry chute and reinstalled it in the new location. Thankfully, the closets are mirror images and everything fit in great. He finished off the other closet by covering the hole and installing the piece of carpet from the coat closet. Looks good as new!

Since this picture, Jon has moved the coat hanging shelf higher and I've painted everything white (the walls were a light greenish color). In the basement Jon has the closet framed, but will soon be putting up the drywall and eventually installing a door. Progress is a wonderful thing!