The paint

It's hard to get a good picture of the paint job, since the lighting downstairs is still lacking. Here's the best I could do:

Day 21

Behold, we have a window:


Also, much painting was accomplished by yours truly and my wonderful husband. Pictures to come.

Day 20

The hole was filled in. More cement was cut out. A picture of a gravel filled window well area may show up here. If not, don't worry -- you're not missing much.

Day 19

This might not look like much:

And these might look rather mysterious:


But they're both part of this wonderful event:


The hole -- in the yard -- was dug today! Another hole -- in the cement -- was cut! We officially have a window well!

Logan enjoyed the tractor in the yard:

Day 18

The bottom set of steps was put in today. It's still covered in paper and plastic, but you can see how it flares out and get a hint of the stain through the plastic. The railing still has to go in, but that won't happen for a while -- after painting, carrying machinery and flooring up and down the steps, etc.

Day 17

The Priming of the Walls

Also, you can see new steps in this picture that didn't get put in until March 25th... That means I have fallen behind on my daily photographing goal. Sorry!

Days 14-16 - March 17-19

More drywall work these days. And they were mostly partial-days, but I'm counting them anyway. Mostly, they worked on doing the wall along the steps.


At some point, they also made this bumpout next to the steps (though this picture was taken March 26th, after the priming -- I'm all out of order these days).


In the process of all this, the old steps were removed. I chose to ignore the laundry in the dryer tonight.

Day 13

We decided to get all new steps put in while we're doing the basement. I won't go into details, but when our house was built, the steps to the basement were not done well. At all. So we figured, while we're spending all this money doing all this work, we might as well get the stairs done too. The top half was put in Monday.


Since the new ones are slightly narrower than the old ones (to give us a tad bit more space on the very small landing), we now have gaps that will need to be dealt with.


Oh, and that lovely "brown paper" color? That's not the real color. The risers are painted white, and the treads are a lovely stained oak. You can catch a glimpse of it here:

No work days...sickness reigns

Well, sickness reigns for the drywall guy, and bad weather reigns for the masonry guy, who must come cut a window in the cement. And so...no progress, no "Day _____" to report.

I did, however, order the flooring material today. Not that I have any idea when it will be needed. But having it ordered is a good first step. The cabinets for our wet bar are scheduled to arrive this Thursday. Which means, I'll have to start parking outside, since the cabinets will take up residence in our garage until their basement corner is ready for them. I am very spoiled when it comes to parking in my garage, so I'm hoping that the weather starts warming up a bit very soon.

I still need to order the countertop for the wet bar. Chad and I recently agreed on material and color/pattern, so I just need to find time to get to Home Depot (preferably without toddler in tow) to place my order.

And we haven't even started to think about paint. Our contractor said we could go ahead and paint the bathroom now, before things like fixtures and wall plates get in our way. But between illness, busyness, and the aforementioned toddler who is always in tow, we haven't done anything in that direction. It'll be fine either way. If it's harder to paint later because we waited too long, we'll survive. My goal is to get some primer on the bathroom wall, and if the color has to wait, it'll be okay.

Not that I've bought any primer yet, either.