It's been about a month since our last post about the basement and boy, has it been busy. Through all the holiday fun and madness, we have been using every free moment to work on the basement reno. It's not as easy as it may seem, especially with a wild toddler running around demanding lots of attention, but we are making it work on nights and weekends and even some much needed nap times.
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| Who needs naps? Not me... |
We started tackling the stairs right after most of the drywall was hung. If I have not mentioned before how much I hate wallpaper, let me reiterate...I HATE WALLPAPER. Seriously, you may think it will look nice, but when (and it will be when) you have a change of heart, you will totally regret your design choice. No matter what spray you find that says it will magically remove the wallpaper with ease, it won't, and you will have lots of scrapping and digging to do. Oh, and if you happen to put it up in a place that is hard to reach prepare for the wrath and curses telepathically sent your way by the next homeowner or unfortunate SOB that has to remove it.
Unfortunately for us, the previous owners put up the most hideous wallpaper in the high and narrow stairwell to the basement. We had to rent scaffolding and buy lots of remover to try and get it down, and still spent lots of hours scraping. I worked for a brief time for the SAIA (Scaffolding and Access Association) where we spent most of our time educating people on safety, and I can tell you that as hard as we tried, it is doubtful we would have met the strict safety standards, but fortunately we made it through without incident or injury (minus the pains suffered from endless scraping). Once it was down, Brian had to patch the less than stellar drywall that was underneath and then got to priming and painting.
Bailey and Tequila thought it was a fun game to try and find new ways of sneaking over the barriers set in place to get closer to the action, which kept us on our toes and caused a nice little dent in the wall. Luckily they're both cute and it wasn't too much damage, and Bailey got to help for a bit too.
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| My Rock Star hubs scraping away |
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| Such a big helper |
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| Ok, that's not really helping... |
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| Primer up! |
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| New coat of paint...ignore that awful extension cord |
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| Before and after of the stairwell (minus some finishing touches) |
Once we got the stairwell done and had access to our stairs once again, we started priming all the walls. This really helped us see the space come together. It's amazing how many gallons of primer we went through, but luckily we scored an awesome deal on primer at ReStore, which cut our costs about 75%.
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| A prime view from the stairs (I love puns sometimes) |
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| From the old back room |
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| A view of the HVAC closet and doors |
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| One last view |
Next on the agenda was painting the ceilings and walls. We may have underestimated the amount of paint we needed, so there were lots of late night stops at the paint store. Luckily, Bailey really enjoys the hardware store, especially this time of year with all the Christmas decorations out. We decided on Eternity by Benjamin Moore and the more I see it on the walls, the more I love it.
We also decided to order the carpet for the basement, which means we are now on a deadline to get everything painted, finished and ready to go once the carpet gets here. It added a little extra excitement and adrenaline, until we found out the carpet is a bit delayed, so we are still waiting for the call letting us know when it is officially in and ready to install. So while we were painting walls, we also broke out the crown moulding, baseboards and doors and started getting those painted and ready to go.
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| Painting's a family affair |
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| Bailey thinks she is a big help...and clearly not staying on her designated cardboard |
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| Got back on before she was busted |
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| Playing our up and down game |
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| Good things she's pretty cute |
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| Also painting the crown moulding |
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| Notice Tequila laying in dust |
Once we got most of the painting done (we still have lots of little things to do), we started focusing on the base of the stairs. Under the stairs we are making a cubby for Bailey and her little sister to play in and we wanted to make the stairs look finished so we added some wood and paint. We also extended to bottom step all the way to the wall to open it up and make it feel less cramped at the bottom of the stairs.
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| Finishing touches on the stairwell |
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| A broader look |
We have the stairs almost finished, but have another coat of paint to add once the wood filler dries, then we'll share pictures. We also started hanging the crown moulding and adding some more finishing touches that we can add now before the carpet comes.
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| Tacking up the first piece |
We are going to be taking a break for a few days to visit friends and family in Kentucky this weekend and we are crossing our fingers for a call about the carpet while we are gone. But we'll keep you posted on our process. We also have a special project we've been working on for Bailey that is starting to shape up nicely, but we'll save that for another time.
Hope you and your family have a wonderful week! Until next time...
XOXO,
Sara, Brian, Bailey, Tequila and Baby Girl Schorr #2
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