Basement
After six years, we feel like we've reached the tipping point. As of this winter, every single room in our house has had SOMETHING done to it. They may not be finished, but we have messed with every room in one way or another. Including....
...the basement.
The basement was really a last frontier of sorts, the repository for everything we didn't want to deal with or wanted to keep away from Grace. We used to make it the last stop on house tours so we could say, "And HERE is what the house looked like BEFORE we did anything." It was effective in eliciting gasps of amazement from visitors who congratulated us on our bravery/masochism/stupidity for taking on such a crazy project.
No more, my friends, no more.
We cleaned out all of the stuff in the basement (though Aaron will tell you that it wasn't cleaned out--exactly. That his crazy wife just MOVED stuff to the attic space and the garage. And under the guest room bed. And a few closets. But SOME STUFF IS GONE FOR GOOD! I swear.) We hired our neighbor, Brian, to demo the last half of the basement ceiling and TK started to frame it out before he was called away to another project. (TK, COME BACK! **weeps**)
Grace has commandeered it for her personal play space and even volunteered to help mop the floors. Aaron has been busy with SketchUp designing what it will eventually look like. And I have been enjoying the new washer and dryer that my parents got us for Christmas three years ago and which we waited to install until we had a clean space for laundry. I suspect my mom was the driving force behind that gift because she a) loves to do laundry several times a day when she visits, and b) hated our laundry appliances. Maybe I should make her drive our station wagon while she is here next time.
You really can't tell from the photos, but the space is HUGE. The footprint of the whole house. And raw. Very, very raw. It will be interesting to see what we can coax out of it.
Cross-posted (with additional photos) at LifeinProgress
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Comments
We're right there with you - we've begun accumulating parts for our basement re-do - still in the plotting phase, but maybe next summer we'll get started...thanks for the inspiration!
Posted by: Sarah | January 13, 2010 7:22 PM
Oooh! Nice! Do you have any moisture concerns in the basement?
Posted by: Holyoke Home | January 14, 2010 7:24 AM
Woah. This is real good. Thanks for sharing this up!
Posted by: Home | January 28, 2010 1:12 AM
I commend you for taking this on. You really have a ton of space and it will be a great area when you're done. We've had to deal with water issues in two basements and it's not fun, but once you get past that, it's all design and make it fun. Here's a link I found helpful on the water issues:
http://www.oldhouseweb.com/stories/Detailed/14277.shtml
Posted by: Allison | February 1, 2010 9:47 PM
Hi!
Nice blog. Be thankful your basement doesn't have a dirt floor. Changing that is somewhere on my long, long "to do" list but it will give me an excuse to buy the cement mixer I crave.
Posted by: Fred | February 4, 2010 11:03 PM