Thursday, January 20, 2011

Chapter 9: He's been busy!

So as you know, hubz has been working more on the basement since he's been out of work. You may review our previously reported progress, here.

Since our last post, he has painted the workshop (I helped, a lot), put up the insulation and more studs in the large section, and is almost ready to paint the floor and put up the wall panel.

He's all moved into the workshop! He built his workbench and added some shelves & cabinets. He also cleaned out the storage room.






















Monday, January 10, 2011

Chapter 8: Basement Wall Panel

So we made a trip to Lowe's tonight so we could get some paint for the workshop's final coat, and took a look at the wall panel, and I think I've narrowed it down. We're supposed to get a winter storm tonight, and the schools are all closing, hopefully the university I work for does so I can help with the second coat of paint! :-) The sooner the workshop is done, the sooner hubby can get his tools organized and get started on the rest of the basement, which shouldn't take as long!

But here is the panel I like best at Lowe's, we're going to also check Home Depot to compare options. We want something really light, just not completely white, to brighten the space up, and I actually think we'll be changing our original color scheme to the colors in this image:

We intend to paint the basement floor as a temporary measure until we can afford other flooring, and this blue goes well with the lighter shade we used on the workshop walls, which we finished painting on our "snow day" today. Pictures coming soon!

Sunday, January 9, 2011

2010 Project Recap

So 2010 was a tough year actually. Not much blogging at all. We really didn't do as much with the house as we wanted to. With hubz out of work a lot this year, the funding for all the projects we want to complete wasn't readily available. And with my new photography venture, house blogging kind of took a back burner... but now with the basement if full swing, there will be a lot more.

The main project we've been slowly working on is indeed the basement. Which I started dreaming about as soon as we bought the place... actually, before. :)

Chapter 1: Early Preliminary Planning (a girl can dream right?) I was right about it being a year before we were able to start finishing the basement. Or at least we've been working on it a little at a time for that long, and we're still not 100% finished...

Chapter 2: Basement Inspiration: Young House Love One of my favorite house blogs. They redid the basement in their old home and gave me several ideas on how to inexpensively and effectively finish ours. They recently moved to a new home, and I can't wait to see how it evolves!

Chapter 3: If Walls Could Speak We began looking at different types of ways to do the walls - our panel adventure began.

Chapter 4: Basement Layout Plan The way we plan to layout the basement once finished. This still remains the same to this day, for the most part.

Chapter 5: Basement Idea Board This has indeed changed. I originally pictured us painting whatever we put up (either drywall or paint-able paneling)... and my color scheme idea has now changed as well. Some things will stay. I will probably create a new idea board soon to replace this one.


Chapter 6: It has began? begun? Started. The "official" start of the basement work!

Chapter 7: Basement Progress! We've Made Some! The title says it all... the first account of the progress we've made thus far.

Chapter 8: Basement Wall Panel The paneling hubz and I have agreed one - picked it out today actually. Hope to be ready to install within a couples months. This project is being funded by my father in law, as sort of our "house warming gift" he'd promised to help us with it since we moved in. With hubz out of work he's been able to devote more time to it. I guess him being laid off has some perks...

In addition to the basement, we did have a few small projects this year... We vowed not to forget the small things, even though money has been tight, and we did some more recapping on our small projects in February. And our "biggest" project this past spring, aside from the basement work, was an old swing set that came with the house, that hubz drug out of the overgrown woods and cleaned up for the kiddos, during our "Spring Cleaning" weekend.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Chapter 7: Basement progress! We've made some!

 


So above is the basement before we moved in. It's a great space! Mostly we've made progress filling it up... but slowly we are making it into a usable space. Below is the basement filled with our stuff... which is a mess and very dusty from the saw dust!





Adam has started working on his workshop at the far end of the basement. We put the first coat of paint on today, but I haven't taken pictures yet. I took these before we painted (there were only studs & some insulation here before he started):




So this is our progress... hope to update with photos of the painted walls soon. He hopes to put the 2nd coat on Monday. :)