Basement: Finished

It's done, it's done, it's done! Can you tell I'm excited?! It's finally done! Our blank-canvas of an unfinished basement has been given a brand new look! Gone are the cinder blocks and cold concrete floor. Hello year-round space! Work started on September 21st and the last pieces of trim were installed on November 16th. If it weren't for some delays on getting the right pieces (we have strangely sized doors, apparently), it would have been done a few weeks earlier.

While we might be missing some wall art (it's so hard deciding where to put things when you can do anything!) and some furniture pieces, all the contractor's work is done and the rest is up to us.

Fun fact - before they put down the flooring, I traced each of our hands and put the date on the concrete by the stairs. Our own little time capsule to be discovered when we swap out the carpeting.

Here are some pictures of the transformation:

Prior to buying the house

 Framing complete

Midway through drywalling

Mudding, day 1 of 3

Textured, ready for paint

Paint and carpet!

Lights!

Trim, doors, furniture and TV

Looking the other way.
This area is now the kid zone.

Bathroom to be finished later

Shelves!

Future bar/beer area?

Guest room

Bam! Fall!

Wow. Looking back, October was a pretty busy month for us! We had a LOT of work done on our basement (soooooo close to being done - just need doors and trim), went to a Badger game without the kids, went to a family wedding with the kids, attended a few social functions, and did stuff involving pumpkins. You know, the usual: selection and carving of the perfect pumpkins.

Felix has been doing very well in school. I'm impressed that his teacher has been doing units on bats and owls, and so Felix has come home peppering his speech with words like nocturnal and echolocation (and reading these words as well). With the basement project, he's been confined to his room with his Legos, and it often looks like the box exploded. But his imagination has been running wild. Lately, he's been been building monster trucks.

Iris has been acting every inch of 3. She's chatty, funny, energetic, and prone to throw a tantrum if things don't go her way. And when there's candy in the house, make that double. She likes to say "I need to tell you something!" She just finished her first session of swimming lessons (actually taking them twice, because the Y offers them for the daycare kids). She's so little in the pool - head barely above the water when standing on tip-toe in the little pool. Except she is so independent, constantly telling her teacher "I can do it myself!"

The kids had a good time at Halloween. It was a rainy day that thankfully ended prior to going out, but even so, the kids only were interested in going to 8 houses. Fine with me!

Did I mention I spent some time the morning after Halloween putting up Christmas lights? Neighbors, I'm so sorry, but I didn't want to be up on the roof when it was 40 and/or icy. I promise not to turn them on until after Thanksgiving. I'll also do a separate blog post on the basement as soon as it's done!

PS - END THE TIME CHANGE NOW!!! Seriously.

Felix: 6 yrs & Iris: 3 yrs