the basement

 So, when we bought our house, we had intentions of finishing the basement.  We thought, "we'll do it ourselves, how hard can it be?  People do it all the time." After doing investigating and research and homework, we decided we'd do some of the work and contract some of the work.  It was sort of our way of being financially sound and emotionally stable at the same time. 

Anyway, we enlisted the help of my very very talented in-laws who helped for about 3 weeks total.  They helped at the beginning with framing (never forgetting the floating walls), and at the end with tiling, doors, molding, and painting. 

So I don't have a real before picture of the basement prior to any of our junk getting moved out or minus framing.  Basically it was a dusty, white box (it had padded insulated walls) full of nonsense and rubish and our treadmill (and yes, we use it).

So now I'll take you through 3 months:

 Framing: I didn't cut a piece of wood, nail anything, measure anything or help basically at all.  I watched the kiddos and cooked lovely meals as payment for the great help of my in-laws.  Oh, and I got to design it - where the walls would go and what-not.

 In the background there, you can see that they have a really big piece of wood - they were laying a sub-floor in the crawl space.  It's something that couldn't really be done once the space was finished, so we just went for it.  Now we have a much more useable crawlspace for a mere 50$.

 Now we jump a bit...electrial happened from a contractor.
Plumbing happened from a contractor.
Heating and air happened from a contractor.
Drywall happened from a contractor.
It created a dustball mess in my basement that didn't end until Saturday.

 Then there was the painting.  (and the molding and the railing, and the doors and door knobs, and tiling, and hours of shopping - the Home Depot guy asked if I wanted an apron because I was there so much). I did 90% of the painting.  The ceiling took 2 coats.  Everything else took a lot.  11 gallons later... I'm not a fan of painting door frames.

On Monday, we got our toilet and sink installed.  And on Friday we got carpet.  The treadmill found it's home again.  The room is the worlds best play room right now because there is nothing to ruin really. 

And today, we got the shower door put in and our house passed all the inspections.  I'm so excited.  I love it.  It's my favorite place in my home right now. I'll share about the bathroom another time, as it's almost done, but not quite.  But for now - so pleased.