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.

Shasta Has Left Us

This morning Shasta could not walk. She's been on painkillers for several months because she's been struggling, but this morning she was done. Sadly, we made an appointment with a mobile vet to euthanize her this evening. We spent her last day petting her and trying to spoil her with favorite foods, like bacon. She was a wonderful dog child and we will miss her.

Dungeon No More!

I still need to finish staining the doors and baseboard in the rest of the basement, but the family room/office is done!! I dug through my old photos because I thought it would be fun to compare how it looked when we bought the house. 

(Unfortunately, most of the built-ins that were in place when we bought the house had to be removed before we moved in for the basement repair; the foundation had some large cracks in it at the time and we had them repaired immediately.)

I'm pretty excited about how this turned out. Tim Austin did a wonderful job. It's actually nicer than I originally anticipated. I had not expected to have wainscoting in there, but I didn't want drywall all the way down to the floor and plywood worked out better with Tim's plan.

Almost Finished

I've finished varnishing the woodwork in the family room!

I was pretty excited about being finished and then I started taking off the masking tape. The delay in removing it was not kind as there are a number of spots where it peeled off the paint. Sigh. This is by far the worst spot that needs to be touched up.

Tim left me with a very heavy 5-gallon can of leftover paint so I am going to take it into Sherwin Williams tomorrow to get some help with mixing and pouring into smaller cans. 

Ready for Varnish!

I'm so happy we reached the point where I can finally start varnishing! Yay!

Obviously, it would have been nice if I hadn't messed it up and added two weeks of sanding to the process, but I'm happy I finally got there in the end. Let this serve as a cautionary tale for anyone else who decides to follow in our footsteps. Be sure to test your stain on scraps. And thoroughly mix the stain beforehand.

I'm hoping to start varnishing tomorrow.

Reinstalling Boards

I was gone for several days this past week, but I have returned and am getting back to work. Today we started reinstalling the boards. We decided to move some of them around because they had visible knots and we replaced a couple of them. 

Tomorrow we should be able to reinstall the last of the boards and the wainscot staining will finally be finished. It's been an unnecessarily long process, but I'm looking forward to finally reaching the next step.

More Staining

Got the first coat done; round 2 starts tomorrow.

I'm hoping to finish all the staining in the family room this weekend. I'll still have the baseboards on the other side of the basement, but this hard part is nearly finished.

Update on Saturday: Second coat finished. They look darker in person than they do in the photos. I'll let them dry until tomorrow then I'll finish the 2nd coat on the walls.

Update on Sunday: All finished. 

Next, we'll reinstall the boards on the seams, touch up any spots that need it, then I'll varnish everything.