Furniture Rearranged

Last Wednesday, which luckily turned out to be a fairly sunny day, we hired a couple of movers from Oregon Trail Moving to help us move some furniture from storage and to rearrange furniture inside the house. Since it was so hot last summer we decided it would be worthwhile to move a bed down into the finished basement. The long-term plan is to install a murphy bed, but we just moved one of our bedroom sets down there for now. (I guess I haven't taken a photo since we cleaned up and made the bed.)

I don't have a good photo of the other side of the basement yet. Last night we got the television installed on the wall bracket and we started hooking up the gear. It's going to look a lot nicer with the wires all behind the walls. We are still hunting for a used nice-looking media cabinet so we will continue to use the inexpensive IKEA unit we bought to use during the remodel.

I also started moving my quilting stuff into the upstairs bedroom. I need to try and figure out the best way to use this furniture. Those are two Stickley bookcases and a Borkholder console table (all solid wood) that I scored off craigslist for very good prices. I think I may cover the console table with an ironing pad and use it as a permanent ironing station.

I'll have to show photos of the second bedroom next time. I still haven't taken any pictures since we moved in the new furniture.

I had planned to have the movers just move the big furniture pieces and then we would move the rest of the boxes and little stuff ourselves, but they managed to get virtually everything loaded in our pickup and rented U-Haul trailer. We only have a few things left in storage to retrieve before the end of the month.

The extra help was great, but I had rather expected to be able to deal with stuff a little at a time. Since everything came at once I now have a rather large pile of boxes down in the basement I need to finish sifting.

Rearranging Closets

Jeff is delighted with his new closet. It is much larger than the one he had upstairs.

All his clothes easily fit and we are going to add some hooks onto the blank wall areas to provide even more hanging space.

And I'm thrilled I got to claim the closet upstairs to store quilting supplies. I'll have to put some thought into how I want it all arranged before I start moving into the shelves.

I've already hung all my flimsies and quilt backings on the other wall. Hopefully, this is the maximum number I'm going to have. I expect once I have the long arm I will quilt most of them fairly quickly.

(For folks who are interested in the quilting side of my blogging, I am posting my quilting endeavors over at my quilt blog.)

Basement Closet Finished

Except for the door, the closet is finished!

I had hoped to stain this closet like we stained the others (with the support boards stained and the shelf boards not), but masking was taking way too long and I would have had to go buy more masking tape so I gave up the effort. I was beyond ready to be done with this project so I bailed on that plan and just stained it all the same color.

It's time to start packing up the dressers to prepare for the movers on Wednesday. And, I think I can finally schedule delivery of my long arm. I'm excited about all the quilting fun I get to have this summer.

Sanding Again

I finally got back to work on the basement today. I spent ALL DAY masking and sanding the closet. Tomorrow I'm planning to wipe down the wood and start staining. 

I scheduled movers to help us move in next Wednesday so now I have a deadline.

Finally, a New Range

This past Wednesday⏤more than 11 months after we initially ordered it from BASCO⏤we finally got our new induction range. I meant to blog about it sooner, but I've been busy trying to get the basement finished.

I was tempted very many times to cancel our order and go elsewhere to buy the appliance, but I wasn't sure we would get it any faster if we had to go back to the end of the line. I freely admit that I would have preferred the green Ilve range, but Jeff is loving the features of the Fisher & Paykel. It has a warming drawer and has a low-heat setting for rising bread dough.

It's been a very long time since we had a glass cooktop. I forgot what a pain they are to clean. On the bright side, though, we can actually cook on top of silicone mats so hopefully, there will be less scratching from the bottom of pots.

I've ordered a couple of round silicone mats that are specifically designed for the purpose.

Ready for Moving Day

Now that I can take photos of the other side of the basement, I thought it would be fun to continue my basement tour. 

I still need to finish staining the inside of the closet, the two new doors and the vestibule area at the basement door, but I am going to wait for some nicer weather so I can sand the doors outside. 

We also need to sand and put a top coat on the new stair treads. We had the contractor leave the masking on them because I didn't want them to get too dirty while I figure out what to finish them with. I had thought I bought the correct finish coat I needed, but I just read on the can that it cannot be used on floors so I need to find something else. I'm hoping to get the stairs finished in the next few weeks but I need to find a time when we can avoid walking on them for several days.

Tomorrow I will start calling around and see if I can find some movers to help us shuffle furniture around the house. We're going to move one of the bedrooms down here temporarily so we have a place to sleep when it gets so dang HOT this summer. We were miserable last summer.

Staining Again

I've spent the past several days in the basement again. I'm trying to get the basement finished enough that we can have movers come and help us shuffle furniture. I still need to finish the interior of the closet and the doors, but most of the baseboard is stained and varnished now. At this point, I'm just waiting for the varnish to dry enough to remove the masking and then touch up the paint. 

Staining the baseboard around the back of the new laundry room sink was not fun. It was pretty hard to crawl under it to reach the back but it will be worth it. I LOVE the new sink and faucet, it is so much more useful now.

This coming week, we are hoping to start moving furniture into the basement family room. Jeff is eager to start working down there.