Basement Update

It’s been awhile since I have shared about the work we are doing in our basement. Why? Well, because summer took over and life happens. The last update I shared was in July, so it’s been awhile!

It really hasn’t felt like we have accomplished much, but when I look back through the pictures, I can actually see a few updates! I had to use our point and shoot camera since we are having issues with our DSLR. Hoping to get that resolved soon!

What’s that? A couch? Yes, yes it is. It has some great texture – and a fun little herringbone pattern. Pretty sure that once the couch arrived, all basement progress ceased for at least a month. The basement officially became usable. If only we had TiVo in the basement… Netflix and Hulu will have to do for now. The coffee table is an antique trunk I found, and then we added some castors to raise it up a bit. It really should be a little bigger, but it will do for now.  Better pictures coming soon (maybe!). Oh, and ignore the lack of decorating. I pretty much just carried down a few things that have been pulled off display upstairs, and then set them in the vacant spots downstairs. Still waiting on the doors, shelves and crown molding for these cabinets…


I found this cabinet at Nadeau in Minneapolis. Fun fact: it was full of little Buddha’s in the store. They even gave us one to bring home! The little bench with the W pillow was made by an Amish carpenter about 12 years ago. It fit well in our first home, not so much in this one. Thinking a coat of paint might help…? It has great storage, and I’m not ready to let it go yet.


I am super excited about this table! I found it at a local flea market. It has a cast iron drafting table base with a solid wood top. The crank actually works, so the table height is adjustable. Our plan is to use this as a family game table, and then as a high top bar table when we have company. I just haven’t decided what to do about stools yet. The cardboard underneath is because the base is cast iron. We plan to put some kind of finish coat on the underside of the feet so that the table legs do not leave rust spots on the carpet (assuming there is ever moisture in the basement). It will eventually move over, invading the treadmill space. Not sure what to do about that beast. I use it too much to let it go, but we just don’t have a great spot to put it.


The trim around the patio door is newly finished. In the last month I painted the patio door (one coat of primer, 2 coats of paint) and then last week hubby put the trim up around the door. It’s amazing how finished it makes that corner look! Now I just need to prime/paint the screen door. Also going to try painting the little pieces for the alarm system (the little brown rectangular piece in the upper left corner of the door).


This is my absolute favorite part of the basement. If only there were doors, shelves and molding. Patience…??  What’s that?!?


The wall color looks crazy blue in this next photo, and not at all accurate, but I wanted to try and capture how the lights spotlight the fireplace. The painting over the fireplace is too small, but I had to fill the space with something I already had. What better to use than an oil painted that was hand painted by my Grandma! She also made the vase that is sitting on the hearth. She was very artistic and I miss her a ton.


Some other basement progress not shown in these pictures:
1. We found a bedframe for the bed in the spare room – no more mattress and boxspring on the floor. Our guests have appreciated the upgrade!
2. I painted a set of nightstands that I found on Craigslist. Right now they are extremely poorly styled (like most of the basement) with teeny tiny cast-off lamps that used to live in our master bedroom (10 years ago). If I’m honest, one of the lamps still needs a lightbulb. Maybe I will take care of that tonight…?
3. Construction on the bathroom vanity has begun! Slow and steady. I should probably start looking for the perfect paint color…
4. We have been researching surfaces for the bar counter-top. My choice would be granite. Pretty sure hubby is happy with whatever we choose, as long as it is cheap. Ugh. That means that granite is out. At this moment, I think we are going to try pouring a concrete countertop. This could get interesting!
5. A decision was made about part of the trim that still needs to happen on the stairs. It’s just waiting for paint and installation.
6. We picked up some rugs for the bathroom. The shower and toilet work, so it’s usable, but you just can’t wash your hands yet… We have hand sanitizer on the shelf :)

The weather here in Minnesota will soon be taking a severe turn for the worse (remind me why I live here?!?), which means we need to prioritize some of the painting that needs to happen. Last winter I had a painting station set up where the couch is sitting, and it seems like I was completing some phase of trim painting several times a week. This year I need to do all of the painting in our garage, and it’s not heated… yet… Guess I will be working on painting as much as possible over the next month…

I am hopeful that I will have more exciting basement updates to come soon. Updates would come faster if we had some volunteers to help us make progress.  Anyone interested??

Backyard Tire Swing

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!


In our case, when life gives you a flat tire, use an old tire to make a tire swing!

On our way home from Iowa in July, we ended up with a flat tire on our camper. Luckily we had a full-size spare and we had no trouble changing the tire.  (This is one of those times where “we” means handy hubby).

After buying a new set of camper tires, hubby kept one of the old tires (saved the $3 recycling fee!) and picked up a rope and carabineers to make a tire swing in the backyard.  The best part?  We can unhook the tire swing and hang up a disc swing in about 20 seconds. 

Putting together a backyard swing is really pretty simple!  The funniest part was when hubby tied the rope to a hammer and threw the hammer up and over the branch.  Except the hammer didn’t go over the branch.  It got stuck.  It took some finagling, but he worked it out and even saved his hammer!  The branch is WAY up there, so it was a bit tricky!

Can you tell what Anthony thinks of his new swing?







Did you notice that single crooked tooth? Of course you did. How could you not?  His smile is one million times cuter without that tooth!

This swing is used almost daily!  He loves it!

Carpet! {Basement Update}

It’s been awhile since I have posted an update on how things are going in the basement.  We have continued to work on things, and wow, have we come a long way from where we started.  Here's where we last left off.

It look a ton of discussion, but we finally made a decision about the railing for the stairway. Should it be white? Should it be stained? Should it be a combo of white and stained? If it’s a combo, which parts are stained, and which parts are white? Seriously, some decisions end up so much harder than they need to be. This one definitely took some thought.

We decided to do a combo of painted white and stained wood to help with the transition from the stained doors/trim upstairs, to the white trim downstairs.Here’s what we decided for the railing:


Here we are ready for carpet! The top on the wet bar is not the top that will stay there.  That piece will actually be going on the half-wall on the right (where the extra trim is stacked).  It will be cut and stained dark like the tops on the built-in cabinets. We haven’t decided what the countertop surface on the wet bar will be yet.


Here’s the spare room. You can see the wood tops on the half-walls – this will carry through the bathroom, and the family room.  We still need to trim out the windows.  They were not a necessity for carpet, which was our recent goal.  At this point the focus is on what HAS to be done to pass inspection.


Here’s the family room, just waiting for carpet.  You can tell that we have been using the basement as our “finishing room” for years.  There are strange stains all over the concrete from spray paint (over spray), stain drips/spills, paint, etc.  The cabinets are still waiting for doors, shelves and crown molding. My priorities are not at the top of hubby’s list… Ha.


The fireplace is my favorite thing about our basement.  I can’t wait until we have furniture to snuggle in on and enjoy a cozy fire this fall!


Install day!  We snuck down and took a couple of pics during the carpet install.  It was so hard to wait all day!

The carpet is in!!!

The carpet has been in for one month, and since then we have been busy moving some furniture around.  We can FINALLY bring some things back into the basement to STAY.  It’s been 1.5 years since that has been an option.

It feels like we are close to being done, but there are still so many things to do…  Maybe we’ll be done by Christmas?  Just one year past my original goal??  We’ll see.

SNOW Day in Minnesota {in MAY!!!}

When I went to bed last night it was raining.  I knew there was snow coming, and the forecast was predicting a significant amount of snow, but wow, I was not expecting this. In May!  I woke up to our cell phones receiving texts and instantly knew without even looking: SNOW DAY = NO SCHOOL.  In May!!  Sure enough, no school.  Luckily my meetings were all canceled, and I work a part-time flexible schedule, so I am able to just flex my work day and stay home with Anthony.

Here’s the beautiful view outside my house on this lovely spring morning. In May!!!




Why am I blogging instead of playing with Anthony?  Because he won’t come play with ME!  I’m sitting at the table, with a new game, ready to play, and he’s snuggled in on the couch reading.

The wrinkled brow is how we know he is really into what he’s doing.
We have always called this his “learning face”.

He picked out two new books at the book fair at school yesterday and has been reading them ALL MORNING.  For an hour and a half!! (He now has a blanket – he’s still in his PJ’s! – and a kitty curled up with him)   He’s such a big reader, and the educator in me is having a hard time saying, “Stop reading, and do something else” so I’m sitting here waiting and waiting and waiting.  And blogging…  Right next to my fireplace.  On May 2nd!!! 

From what I have read online and over email, there’s around a foot of snow (I’m not going outside to find out), the roads are terrible, trees are down all over the place, and the power is out in neighborhoods all across our city.  Many of our schools sites are without power today too.  Crazy!

Did I mention it’s May??  In Minnesota!!

I’m ready to move south.  Who’s with me???

The Fireplace is Finished! {Basement Progress}

I have been sorting through pictures from our vacation every night this week (and I'm loving every minute of it!). While sorting through pictures, I realized that I haven't posted an updated photo of the fireplace stone now that it's finished. The last update on the progress in the basement was also related to the fireplace.

There are many skills that we have learned while working on the basement, and learning how to install fireplace stone has definitely been one of the trickiest.  It took some trial and error, and a few stones falling off (yes, falling off...) for us to figure out how to move forward with the stone.  A couple of tricks that we learned were to use more water in the mortar, spray the back of the stone, and spray the wall. 

Here is hubby putting on the scratch coat.  At this point I was pretty convinced that this was not a project we should be attempting to tackle.


He did the scratch coat on a Saturday morning, we started with the stone late afternoon on Sunday and finished the stone approx Thursday night that week.  We still had to grout, but we were pleased to have the stone up in less than a week. The photo below is after 2-3 different evenings of installing stone.  I joked that I was moon-lighting as a stone mason that week...  In a couple of these photos you can see the stone on the floor in the bottom of the picture.  I spent some quality time laying out the stone for the entire fireplace wall on the floor so it could be quickly and easily transferred to the wall. Since we mixed two different colors of stone, this was definitely necessary to make sure the color was balanced.  It also helped to make sure the joints of the stones did not line up (we wanted a staggered look).


Right before leaving on our trip for Disney we finished the fireplace by grouting. We didn't grout between every stone, just filled in the gaps using a grout bag.  Two days before leaving for Florida we had the fireplace company return to complete the set-up of the fireplace – it works!


You can read more about the fireplace install here.

The best thing about this fireplace? It kicks off some serious heat, which is important in Minnesota!  In the end, we are pretty proud of our work!

Linking to: Thrifty Decor Chick, house by hoff, Remodelaholic

Fireplace Stone {Basement Progress}

This past week has been a full week – nearly every evening we have been working in the basement on the fireplace stone.

Here’s a quick iPhone photo to show the progress we have made!



The stone will go all the way to the ceiling – we are hoping we can get the rest of the stone installed this weekend!

Happy Friday!

Basement Cabinets! {Pinterest Challenge}

Last weekend we made some great progress with the built-in cabinets. They are definitely still a work-in-progress, but it’s nice to have made it this far! 

Here’s how the basement cabinets looked mid-afternoon on Sunday:


Yes, the base trim and crown has not yet been installed, nor do we have cabinet doors or shelves, but this is progress!

If I back up to the beginning of the design, I have to give some design credit to Pinterest and the many blogs that I follow.  It seems like so many people are painting their woodwork – trim, kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, etc. white, and it took some time, but white cabinets have definitely really grown on me.  If you have been to our home, or looked at pictures, you know that the upper two levels of our home are full of traditionally stained woodwork, 6 panel doors, etc., so we looked at the basement as a fun opportunity to do things different.  We decided the design could be extremely different from the rest of our house – it’s our house, so as long as we like it, it works for us!  I initially kept trying to describe white cabinets with stained wood “countertops” and a chunky mantel to handy hubby and it took some time for him to “see” my vision.  Then I started finding some photos on Pinterest and blogs that provided even more guidance. 

LOVE the look of this mantel!

Source

Then Sarah of Thrifty Décor Chick started blogging about her built-in cabinet project.  THIS was the cabinet style I wanted and had in my mind – it was PERFECT to have an example for handy hubby!  White cabinets with stained wood counter-tops!

Source

Then Kate from Centsational Girl painted her built-in cabinets and left the hearth with a stained wood top (which initially was part of our design plan).

Source

As you can see, all of these pictures have definitely become inspiration for our basement cabinets! 
While the work is definitely not done yet, we are getting extremely close to installing the stone on the fireplace (eek!! wish us luck!!)

Here’s a few more (iPhone) pictures from last weekend:


Since these photos have been taken, prep work has been happening to install the stone on the fireplace.  Given our lack of experience (we have never installed stone before!!), this will definitely be an interesting DIY project for us. Sometime in the next couple days the fireplace will get its scratch coat in preparation for the stone installation.  Right now this makes the barn beam mantel installation look pretty easy!


You might be wondering Why is there already a TV in there??  Great question. We found a great deal on a TV at Costco and decided to take the plunge now, instead of waiting a couple months for the basement to be ready.  We HAD to set up the new TV to make sure it works well, so the new TV is currently upstairs getting used daily, while our old TV is currently hanging out safely in the basement.  Plus, it’s nice to watch while we work!

Remember where we started?  No?  See the beautiful photo below. Wow. Embarrassing, yet I showed it once again. It's so rewarding to see how things have changed! The new fireplace wall is just to the left in this picture (behind the little trampoline).  I didn't get a good photo of that wall when we first started cleaning out the basement.  I still can’t believe all the junk that was (and is) still stored in our home.  It feels like we have purged and purged, but we definitely have more work to do! 



As I was getting ready to share this latest update on basement progress, I saw that Young House Love and Bower Power were doing their seasonal Pinterest Challenge. This challenge they are teaming up with The Remodeled Life and Decor and the Dog.  Even though this project is not done, and has been in progress for months, I thought it would be fun to share how the design morphed from a few photos on Pinterest and from some great blogs that I follow.

I’m THRILLED that we have the cabinet installs completed, even though that means it’s now time to move on to the stone installation.  Eventually we will finish these cabinets (add doors and shelves), but since they are not required for the basement inspection, handy hubby has informed me that those finishing touches will just have to wait. Maybe this summer??

Here’s one last look!



What do you think??


Update:  Want to see how the fireplace looks now, 8 months later?  

Built-in Cabinets {Basement Update}

It feels like so much progress has been made over the last few days that I just had to share what happened this evening!

Handy Hubby finished building the bookshelf cabinet yesterday! We carried it in tonight so it's now ready to prime and paint. Since it's in the basement, we just had to try it out and see how it fits. It will be painted white, there will be trim at the top, shelves built, etc., but this is progress!  It's so awesome to see our vision coming together.







All of the extra stained boards are pieces that will be around the basement on top of the 1/2 walls.  They will also be on the ledge going down the stairs to the basement.

Next up? The cabinet that will hold the TV on the other side!

Built-in Cabinets {Basement Update}

Over the last few weeks we have continued to make progress on the built-in cabinets in the basement. Here are a few quick pictures that show what we have been up to…

The base cabinets built and ready for primer and paint. (Yes, they will eventually have doors. That’s phase two. Or Ten. Or Twenty. Whatever. It will happen.)

Here’s the side panel of the cabinet on the left (it will show into the room). This cabinet will have bookshelves built above it.

The cabinet in the corner is where the TV will sit and the A/V components will go. More cabinets will be built above it too.  (That fun paint job will eventually be covered up.)

Sampling some stain colors on a scrap piece - we wanted dark, and the two on the right just didn't work.

The top of the cabinet on the right side has been stained and installed!  We bought the countertop at Ikea and we are planning to pick up more this weekend!

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have already seen the pictures below.



Is it time for carpet yet??  I can’t wait to start moving stuff back downstairs!