July 23rd, 2010
It’s hot and humid, and while we thankfully have central air conditioning, we certainly don’t want to work on any projects outside. So recently we’ve been turning our efforts to the basement, which had become rather disorganized ever since our attic remodel last summer (it’s been a year since the contractor finished up with us—that [...]
October 9th, 2008
A little more about our stained glass basement, yes basement, door from the previous post.
As I said earlier, we brought this door with us from the previous house, however it wasn’t original to the house — it came from Pete’s family cottage, located just over the Wisconsin border.
Pete’s grandfather built one of the first [...]
September 30th, 2008
I am officially crossing the basement off my list!
Come on downstairs.
Yes, the stairs themselves leave a lot to be desired, especially since the last two steps have been patched in (see my post on cat pee to read why). When we re-do the stairs to the second floor (located directly above these), we’re hoping [...]
September 26th, 2008
Another week has gone by already and unfortunately I don’t have much to say (at least about the house).
We are nearing completion of the basement fixes. The only thing left to do is cut and install the baseboard for the wall sections we had to replace. The door has been hung and the trim [...]
September 9th, 2008
Way back last summer, even before we moved into the bungalow, we had to tear out part of the wall in the finished part of the basement because of the cat pee stench the PO left behind. We had a month from the time we closed on the house until we moved in, and the [...]
April 12th, 2008
As he plans his own basement entertainment space, southsidandy over at Building a Better Bungalow asked me for more details on our basement bar, so instead of emailing him about it I thought I’d write a post if it can give others some ideas too.
The PO hired someone to finish this half of our basement, [...]
March 20th, 2008
I finally tackled the bar area in the basement, which had been piled with crap. Everything is put away, the bar is stocked, and the record albums are hung on the wall around the pool table.
Just a few things left to do down there. We’ll probably have to patch the former cat pee areas with [...]
January 12th, 2008
In case you haven’t noticed, I started a new, permanent Before-and-After section on the site to provide a synopsis of some of our major projects. It’s accessible via the Tabs at the top.
The first two projects highlighted are the Basement and the Windows. My definition of “after” may be a little loose. In some [...]
November 23rd, 2007
Thanksgiving is over and we had a great time with family and friends. The turkey was perfect and the other dishes were also pretty tasty (and with the help of a new tablecloth, completely free of cat hair!).
To get ready for Thanksgiving, Pete and I wanted to have the basement fixed up as much [...]
November 15th, 2007
The basement wall unit still needs to be better organized, but the albums and CDs are in place next to the stereo for your listening pleasure. Although Pete and I have similar tastes in music, they varied enough where we didn’t have any duplicate albums. Rolling Stones, Cream, Hendrix? Those would be Pete’s, while The [...]
November 14th, 2007
We had another productive weekend on the basement project. I painted the window trim as well as the red ceiling stripes, and it is looking fantastic. I love being able to use up paint, and I had a quart of paint called “British Red” from long ago that I thought would be perfect for the [...]
November 6th, 2007
Pete and I were fairly productive this weekend, thankfully, because there are a number of things I’d like to accomplish before Thanksgiving.
As planned, I started to prime the basement storm windows. What wasn’t planned was that some of them had cracks and gouges that needed to be filled first. That became a job for Pete [...]
August 21st, 2007
We did a lot this weekend, even though it doesn’t seem like it. I was hoping to paint the kitchen, but it took a good part of Saturday just to get my painting supplies organized (and I have to be organized before I start on a project, otherwise forget it!). The paint cans, rollers, trays, [...]
August 16th, 2007
Guess who loves to “swim around” on the pool table?
I knew he would.
We’re enjoying it ourselves a great deal (even though I suck!) now that we finally have the basement somewhat clear of boxes. There are only about 6 or so left to unpack.
We let the cats down here a couple weeks ago [...]
July 25th, 2007
The PO was recessed light crazy, especially in the basement. I would say there are about 20 lights in the basement, no lie. I like recessed lights, but it’s a little much. So I was intrigued when I read about the Recessed Light Conversion Kit from Worth Home Products. Their motto is something like, “If [...]
May 18th, 2007
The plumber rodded out the sewer, fixed the ejector pump, installed the basement toilet in the main bathroom and put the green-eyed monster toilet in D’s pod. It was nothing major, thank the “Reno” gods.
Pete pulled up the vinyl sheet flooring, which was a little hard to do but he managed. There was an article [...]
May 17th, 2007
We broke the news last week to D about the mold needing to be removed in the bathroom before our loan could be approved. He was not pleased but we quickly offered up our plan to demo the bathroom now. Turns out D is on vacation for 2 weeks anyway, so we would have easy [...]
May 16th, 2007
The bank called last week. They said that the appraiser had been out to the bungalow and that the house appraised fine, however the basement bathroom is an issue. There is mold everywhere in that bathroom which we were well aware of. When we were haggling over the price, I brought up the bathroom issue [...]