Basement Update

So here it is, the infamous hole that I thought Wade was kidding about one morning two weeks ago when he announced he was going to cut it into the wall that evening. It wasn't until I heard suspicious sawing sounds that I realized he was serious about this whole thing. Mind you, I'm not entirely sure that Wade has ever cut a hole--of any size--into a wall. This is the same guy who freaked out when he came home one day from work to find that I had put up a shelf in the kitchen for knick knacks. In any case, this is where our food storage room is going.

This is a picture of our newly cleaned basement (thanks to yours truly). It hasn't been this clean since we moved in. I should've taken a before picture so you could all appreciate how much hard work I did. This is where the two bedrooms are going to go. It's hard to imagine it right now, but in a few months, you'll see.

This is the bathtub we were told that wouldn't fit down our stairs. Wade and a friend inverted the bathtub so it was upsides down and then turned it as they went down the stairs, only minimally scratching the wall. We had to cut the hole into the wall first so that they didn't have to make the corner into the basement, but could walk through the "bedrooms". I have to say I was quite impressed with Wade's ingenuity.

The empty wall you see here is where our big screen will eventually go. Hopefully sooner rather than later--depending on funds. :) Other plans include installing a retractable projector screen and projector for intense movie watching. We'll see if that pans out. Again...funds. This picture doesn't quite capture the magnitude of the room. It's huge, running the entire length of the house (much like the shot with the bedrooms), so there's a lot of space to fill.

We realized the other day at the home furnishings store that we have been married seven years and have only bought a new washer/dryer and a mattress for a twin bed for Josh. Everything else was either given to us or we found off ksl classifieds for cheap. We're even on our second set of bedroom furniture in our master bedroom. Both sets were given to us by my parents who were upgrading theirs. Over the past four or five days, we've been sitting in a lot of couches and recliners trying to discern what it is we want. Of course, free is always better than full price (or even "sales" price) and I'm certainly not above hand-me-downs. They're a lot of the reason why we are where we are financially. But it's a little liberating to be discussing $1000 couches with seriousness instead of wishfulness. A HUGE part of both of us still balks at the idea of spending that much money for a piece of furniture, but it's soooo comfy. Who knew that you could actually pick out comfortable furniture. While my mom's furniture has always been nice, comfortable is not a label I would adhere to it. Even growing up, I don't recall having extraordinarily comfortable couches for our family room. That didn't stop us from snatching up the sofa and loveseat she offered us when we moved into our house from her living room. It was free and looked good (much better than the couch that sat in our television room until 3 weeks ago) and we don't spend a lot of time in there anyways. But, I haven't ever really been couch shopping, so I'm surprised at just how comfortable they can be. Good thing we have a few months to figure it all out.

Next step: The plumber is coming out next week to install all the plumbing for the bathroom and to put in a drain in our laundry room upstairs. It didn't dawn on us, until we started the whole basement thing, that we don't have a drain in the laundry room in case the water hose to the washer were to break. It would do a lot of damage before it found a way out, so we figured we better get that taken care of while they can still access the floor of the laundry room from the basement. Our many thanks go to the inspectors who let that little failure slide when the house was originally built. At least we caught it now.

After the plumber, we have the HVAC to do and then it's framing time. Meanwhile, we're still picking a fireplace, but hopefully, that should be squared away this week.

Wish Wade luck at his first day back to school tonight. We were able to accomplish everything I wanted before school started--get the basement completely cleaned out and get contractors lined up. Our garage is still full of stuff to take to the dump, but we have a while before it snows and we need that second spot.

Now if we could just keep the upstairs as clean as the downstairs...