A railing, ladies and gentlemen, we have a railing! Came in late one night to show my parents around and look what I found! Jason The Railing Guy had been busy. Because of the complicated angles and terminations, I had hired someone to do this project for me. I’m so glad I did. Jason’s work is beautiful. […]
I got the remainder of the basement framed in just two days! That’s gotta be some kind of record for me. Here it is 3/4 done: The reflective bubble wrap behind the wall is not only insulating but also acting as a vapor/moisture barrier for the stone wall. I have it running all the way up, under the air […]
Oh, the concrete debacle. If I knew then what I knew now… I had been going to do this part of the project all by myself originally, but I decided to hire a professional because: I was nervous that I’d do it wrong. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to carry that many bags of concrete. I’d never used […]
Concrete to level the floors came in last week… the day before my birthday! I was so excited. Dreams of having the floor puddled, perfectly level and ready to roll with my gorgeous vinyl plank floors (which are notoriously picky about the flatness of the surface they’re applied to). I figured they’d flood the floor and […]
Things are happening upstairs too – I’m really impressed with the contractor I hired for that job. So nice when people exceed your expectations. The plans on paper: Are now becoming real: Wow! Fridge moved, wall gone, new bathroom framed out perfectly! He remembered my request for a pocket door, too. The only thing I’m […]
Ever since I realized that I couldn’t excavate the whole basement and that I’d have to cut the family room off right at the back of the stairs, I’d been struggling with unsatisfaction with the resulting size of the room. But I hadn’t wanted to move the bedroom wall to enlarge it because I still […]
The first thing I had to do, if we were going to take the basement from Dank Cave Hole to Welcoming Family Room, was make sure it enjoyed as much natural light and air as possible. Begone, door! After I took off the door, I ripped out most of the framing. I moved it farther over […]
First project in the new house was one of those with the most dramatic impact. As shown in last post’s plans, the basement staircase led directly to a cramped corridor barely 24″ wide. That corridor extended several feet into the rec room (this photo foreshortens it a lot). It made sense that the staircase would be […]
We chose this house because we thought the basement could easily be converted to hold another bedroom and a bathroom. At first I had wanted to extend the family room all the way to the back of the basement, but then I learned that excavating that might entail new footers, underpinnings, drain fields, sump pump, […]