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.