Basement Staining Day 1

Upstairs, our wood was all stained with a combo of two different stains. The first coat was Mohawk Wiping Wood Stain in Red Mahogany. The second coat was Wood Kote Jel'd Stain in Cherry color.

I tried to finish the wood in the basement with the same, but when I went and bought the stain, I accidentally grabbed the Dark Red Mahogany stain and didn't realize it until after I'd used half the can. To be honest, if I'd realized Light Red Mahogany was an alternative, I would have gotten that instead. A lighter stain would have been preferred for the basement.

It is what it is; I'm already halfway finished with the basement family room. The Dark Mahogany is dark. When I started this morning, I panicked a little about how dark it was but then I reminded myself that once it dries, it does lighten up. And once I add the Jel'd Cherry, the color will shift and be closer to the upstairs.

This plywood is sort of horrible to stain. It immediately absorbs the stain and is nearly impossible to spread it out and get it even. But the plywood was a reasonable compromise to save money on this job. If it turns out really horrible, I will simply paint the interior of the panels, like this.

It took me about 6 hours to stain half the family room today and so I decided to spread the task over a couple of days. That means that it's going to be at least 4 days of staining in just the family room side of the basement. Then I'll have to repeat the process for the rest of basement, so it looks like I'll be at this for about a week.

Time for Staining!

I am so excited! Tim is finished with the basement! Now it is my turn; I need to spend the next week or so staining and finishing the wood. It's vaguely tempting to just varnish the wood so it would be lighter, but then it wouldn't blend with the rest of the house as well. And I definitely like to have everything be matchy matchy.

I'm really looking forward to being able to move into the space, it's actually nicer than I was originally anticipating. Our goal was for the space to be comfortable and have good light. We definitely have achieved that. 

I hope I can do a decent job on the staining. I want to get started this weekend but I need to take a look around first and see how much sanding I'll need to do first. I hope not too much.

Basement Wainscoting

Tim and Tony have made a lot of progress on the basement this week. I didn't get down for the painting photos because everything was masked up and I was trying to stay out of the way. But the plastic is down and the wood molding has started going up.

This is the closet door. Tragically, they had to cut about a foot off the bottom to get it to fit in the space.

They'll probably spend another week or so finishing everything, then I can get in there and stain.

Our rugs have all arrived. I opened one of the small ones and to be honest, they've exceeded my expectations. I was expecting a bit of a plastic feel, but they're soft and look pretty good. Even the back is nice, it looks much like a hand-woven rug. I guess we'll see how well they wear. For the cost, I don't have high expectations.

Basement Furnishings

I spent the day shopping for basement furnishings. We'd been planning to replace the old rugs and buy a sofa with a drop-down table for movie time. But now that Jeff has started working again, he needs a quiet place to work so we changed the plan to include a workstation in the theater side of the room.

With the desk added, though, we don't have room for a sofa. I spent a couple hours shopping around online and found a few options until I finally decided it would make the most sense to just relocate our Stressless chairs downstairs from the main floor. It's not like I'll spend much time sitting around once I get my long arm machine next month.

That still left floor coverings. I gave away the old rugs, so we do actually need new rugs. I spent several days agonizing over some hand-knotted rugs that are on sale, but they're still pretty expensive. I'm not sure I can justify more than $3K for the basement family room. 

So I was astonished today when I found some polypropylene rugs that I really liked. I don't normally go for plastic rugs, but the pattern seems period and they're super cheap. And if the basement leaks water again they should survive. Despite my reservations, I ordered a set of the Unique Loom Carnation Edinburgh Geometric Area Rugs from Overstock.com while they're on sale for President's Day. At Jeff's request, I ordered the black ones.

And because I clearly spend too much time in Electric Quilt, I thought it would be fun to try and design a quilt that coordinates with them. This is my first attempt. I will no doubt try a couple more versions before I actually settle on one.

Magnolia Dreams Quilt

Basement Drywalled

They finished on Friday. The end of this project is in sight.

Basement Progress

There's been quite a bit of progress on the basement project since the last time I posted. Everything is framed up and the flooring has been installed, but it is currently covered up to protect it for the drywall install. Here is how it looked last week before they covered it up. We ended up choosing Lifeproof Rigid Core Luxury Vinyl Flooring in the Georgia Clay color; it is basically a waterproof plastic flooring that looks like wood and it should be able to survive if we have some water infiltration again.

Tim and Tony took off last Friday while they waited for the electricians then they all returned to the job on Monday morning. The electricians have been here all week and I think they're nearly finished. We decided to get a new electrical panel installed because our older panels are really quite full. It was installed in our front storage area and will provide service for all the new electrical in the basement. They also put in a new charging unit for Jeff's plug-in hybrid vehicle.

This week, Tim installed the family room wainscoting so it would be easier to locate the power boxes in the middle of the panels. We're just using douglas fir plywood for wainscoting because it was relatively affordable (compared to lumber). This is the only room that will have wainscoting; the rest of the basement will be finished with drywall.

It's exciting, this room is going to be so nice.

All Framed Up

On Friday, Tim and Tony mostly finished installing the steel framing. I think they kept back a few pieces until after the electrician makes an appearance. 

This is our closet area in the center of the space.

And this is the family room area.

I think Tim is going to work on the seismic upgrades on Monday. Apparently, the framing was more fun, so he worked on that part first. LOL