Nepper's of Late - Basement Reno's

I know, its just that life gets crazy, and blogging falls by the wayside. I said I would post on all these things this week, and voila, here it is the end of the week, and I've only blogged about one of them! But seriously, I'm sure you'd prefer I put my blogging on the backburner rather than not feeding my kids, dressing them, feeding my husband, or perhaps taking a shower...um...yeah....

Anyway, here I am. Bright and bushy-tailed. Well, no, lets be serious, this is me we're talking about! Although I do have a mighty cup of coffee at hand, and I'm raring to blog!

So basement reno's. Let's see. Well, the big basement reno weekend (Labour Day weekend) Rob's parent's came in, and I actually took very few pictures because it was fairly busy. Rob and his Dad rented a van from Home Depot and picked up schwacks of drywall, 2x4's, insulation, and then a bunch of little things. We were on a timeline of 1.5 hours, so we had to move. The first dilemma? The 4x8' sheets of drywall wouldn't fit down the stairs (perhaps this is why its never been finished before?). So the drywall was neatly stacked (front side up) in the back yard, while I worked on getting like 46 freakin' 2x4's down the stairs. Whew! It was a WORK OUT! I was about a third of the way through when Rob decided he wanted them stacked elsewhere. Ha..ha, funny...

Once the van was unloaded, we went to work clearing out our front yard (where I had piled everything the night before) and putting in the van. Basically any piece of junk in this house was on its way to the EcoStation. Now an EcoStation is a glamorized dump. Apparently they dispose of things in an environmentally friendly way. Not exactly sure what they can do with half of the stuff dropped off there. Oh well, that's not my problem. So after $10 at the EcoStation, they took the van back to Home Depot for a grand total of $20 for 1.5 hours! Nice. We figure next time we have to move something big in the city we'll just pop over to Home Depot, buy a can of spray paint, and say we need to rent a van to move it ;)

Once all the van stuff was dealt with, they came back and there was much head scratching taking place. Trying to figure out how to get the drywall down the stairs. Two men standing in a stair well with a giant piece of drywall, and there was no way it was going anywhere. Although we all did offer our two bits. In the end, Rob cut it in half, while leaving the one side still intact (so basically folding the piece in half). The problem? Remember how I said they were stacked in the backyard, backside down, good side up? Well, he cut the face of the drywall. So yeah, that basically means twice the taping, twice the mudding, twice the work. Oh my. Lovely. We haven't gotten there yet, but I imagine when we do, and we are covered head to toe in drywall dust, there will be some mutterings going on. "'Til death do us part..."

They got a little bit of the framing done that day. To Rob's dismay all of that took way longer than he had hoped, so it was going on 1:30pm by this point. We were supposed to be having company that night, and well, it just took a plain 'ol long time. So the vapour barrier went up, and about half of the room got framed in. The next day Rob went back to work and framed in the East wall, and built our little storage/pantry room.

The thing that I find frustrating (in hindsight) is that we really didn't plan as well as we could have. We had to spend a considerable amount of time deciding where walls ended, where doors should be, etc. I guess we had one idea in our heads, but then had to change them. Which is OK, but I would just suggest to anyone else doing something along these lines, really sit down and consider what the best use of space would be. Not just for your family, but do try to keep re-sale in mind. Originally the pantry was going to be a closet, then a bathroom, then back to a giant (well hang on, nothing is giant down there, but big) pantry storage room. So just remember that things are going to change, and like most things in life, they don't always go exactly as planned.

You can see here Rob is working on the pantry, and Abbi has also been hired as a labourer. She sweeps. Well, she actually un-sweeps what Mommy has swept, but she was happy to help!
She also was working on the saw. Now, Mother, I'm sure I'll get a phone call about safety hazards. I realize giving your 3 year old a saw isn't the brightest thing, but she had a lot of fun with it. Although her work ethic needs a bit of work.

Abbi working away with her saw...

One minute later Rob is cutting some 2x4's so the sawing is stopped so she can cover her ears. Lets just say she worked on that piece for nearly an entire day and didn't even make a dent.
Oh sorry, I meant to say "Barney" was helping. She's wearing her "flippity flops." Definitely approved jobsite footwear.

Rob framing in the storage room. Using a level. What a professional!

We resumed working the following weekend (it really is a slow process when you do it yourself, and you have two kids!). Ruth was able to come and take care of the kids for about 3 hours. It was bliss! Three uninterrupted hours of being able to work downstairs. My job? The insulator. I guess I showed my all star insulating skills on the craft room wall, so I got hired to do it again. I got this room done in about 30 minutes. That was the easy part.

My gorgeous insulation

The other part I had to do? Ugh. Take the insulation that was shoved between the floor joists, caulk around the edges (see below). This is a big air sealing thing. Rob also found a few holes to the outside once we removed the insulation. Yeah, not a good thing (big gaps between the floor boards and the joists). Like we could see Ruth and Abbi playing in the backyard! We got our handy dandy foam filler and dealt with that. Then I had to remove these 1x1' chunks of insulation, that were shoved up between the joists. It was filled with 30+ years of sand, dust, and insulation fibers. I had to reach up in there, caulk it like crazy, and then shove that piece of insulation back in. Mmm, delicious! Ugh, it was definitely on my top 10 most disgusting things I have ever had to do list.
All the while, Rob gets to play the part of electrician. Definitely a good line of work. You are making around $45 an hour, not getting dirty, running wire, sipping coffee every now and then. I'm on the other side of the room, covered in dust, dirt, probably old dead bugs, grunting up a storm and cursing freakin' energy efficiency!
Although I have to say I was impressed with my savvy shopping husband. I sent him to Rona with $100 worth of gift certificates. He came back with everything needed to completely wire our basement with a total of $99.97! Makes my heart proud!

So that's about all I can say about our basement so far. I guess I thought I would be picking paint colors at this point, but I'm also learning it takes a lot of steps to get to that point. By the way, I'm thinking a green. Not sure what yet. I think we still have a ways to go until we get there.

The next step is getting the drywall hung, and starting taping and mudding. The messy stuff. This means we will have to enclose this end of the room somehow. And it also means my futon, and piles of stuff on top of it will have to find somewhere to go...sigh...

(Yes, there is a futon underneath all of that!)

And I also have to mention the casuality of the weekend. Now we went down the coast to California on our honeymoon. We were able to stop in a for a church service at a sister church to the one we attended back on the Island. It was a really great service, and they also gave great welcome packages. Like seriously, it puts any church welcome package to shame. So we got a "Southlands" coffee mug. That became Rob's favorite coffee mug. It survived us moving 5 times, living in 2 Provinces. Well, he had his coffee mug sitting on one of the 2x4's and well, then he took that piece off the sawhorse pile to cut it... Ouch.
Could we all take a moment to remember the beloved Southlands mug?