Basement Remodel: Update #1

Last month Perry and I, mostly Perry, gave JP's room a needed updated - we gave him carpet! Perry did it all himself :) He's so handy! He also bought an extra roll of carpet. When we finished up the room, he was going to take it back to the store but then we began talking about what we were going to do with the queen sized bed that used to be in JP's room. I didn't want to get rid of it because the kids LOVE to have sleepovers together and I didn't want that to end just yet.

We've talked about doing something to the basement off and on for years but nothing ever came of it until now. After a lot of discussing and measuring, we agreed to put up a few walls to create a 5th bedroom. It will also have a walk-through closet that leads to a storage area. Earlier this year we were talking about taking out one of our closets upstairs when we remodeled the kitchen, but would need somewhere in the basement to store the vacuum and such. I imagine this new space in the basement will be where the vacuum, mop, and shampooer go, when, and IF we remodel the kitchen. Not ideal, but hey.

The new space in the basement will house the extra bed and double as my sewing room. Currently most of my sewing things are upstairs in our living room area, and it's driving me nuts! I'm working on a quilt and I have no room to lay it all out! I'm hoping for the best... The bonus to having the spare room down stairs is solely the fact that there will be a door on it. I can lock the kids out of my sewing stuff. FINALLY!

I was going to post a few pictures of what the space has looked like over the years but I may or may not have misplaced my external hard drive. I am trying to remain calm about it but on the inside I'm panicking about where it could be! There's only 8 years of memories on that bad boy...!! I've been praying to Saint Anthony, the saint of lost and stolen things, but he hasn't pulled through yet. Just keep praying, just keep praying...

Anyways, when we moved in, we housed our green couch from the apartment downstairs, as well as Perry's extra couch and chair. Basically it was a sitting room that no one actually sat in. Ever. Eventually we moved all the kids' toys downstairs and made it into a playroom. You know, why not? keeping their room clean was hard enough, let's give them one more space to have to clean... I've had high hopes for this room, but the vision never really pans out so I'm just excited to be able to make it into a new space.

 Perry was supposed to take a trip to Spokane and be gone for the first week of March. I love when he has to be gone for the whole week. (Can you sense my sarcasm?) A few days before he was set to leave, there was a change in plans so he ended up no needing to go. Because he was already planning on being gone, he opted to use up a few of his thousand vacation days and stay at home with his lovely wife (and start on the basement).

We started taking out the floor on February 29th, but before we began, I managed a couple pictures of our mess of a basement. This first one is standing in our "office" looking towards the family room.

 This second on is looking towards the family room from the bottom of the stairs.

 This one is standing by the window looking towards the office.

 I spent the morning packing up all my sewing things.

And Charlotte helped dad by stacking up the small flooring pieces. She was such a good helper! 

 By the end of Perry's "vacation" he had most of the framing done. There was way too much banging going on for my liking, so I'm glad that part is done.

 Perry decided we are putting in a pocket door. I would have liked a normal door, but there was some kind of problem with the door frame size. We also agreed to wall in the hideous post that is just hanging out in the middle of the hallway. On the other side of it, we'll add some shelves for storage. What would have been the end of the hallway will now be a walk-through closet, and where Perry is at will be a "large" storage area. (He wasn't thrilled to have his picture taken...)

 Perry spent that Saturday and Sunday mostly working on the electrical but by the end of the weekend, we had a few walls up! 

I'll be posting more progress soon! And by soon, I actually mean after I finished two cakes...Check back next Sunday for pictures of those and more basement progress!