Archive for February, 2011

February 23rd, 2011

A room takes shape

Kevin has been working his ass off on the basement bathroom, trying to get it as close to “finished” as possible before the wall-anchor guys show up to shore up the basement and make sure our house doesn’t collapse into a crater in the earth. Isn’t that nice of him?

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Just starting to frame up the walls

In order to install the shower stall we chose, he’s going to have to move the floor drain a little, which entailed busting up a square of foundation that hasn’t been touched in about 60 years. First, he tried using some sort of diamond-edged saw blade. Then he tried using a hammer and chisel. THEN, he Hulked out and just hammered away at the concrete like John Henry and that’s what did the job. Look at that virgin soil! I should snag some for the garden this year.

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the results of a little John Henry action

I can’t wait until the basement is done and we can get to work getting Galaga and Space Invaders cleaned up and up and running again.

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walls mostly framed

Can I tell you how happy I’ll be to get a rebate check from our electric utility for all the insulation we’re buying up for the basement?

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walls framed, outer-wall insulation up, starting on the drywall

Hey, guess what! It’s hard to take pictures inside a tiny room. It’s turning into a legitimate bathroom, though! Yay!

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DRYWALL!

CategoryBasement, Renovation | Comment2 Comments »

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February 2nd, 2011

Fire snowton torpedos!

While we slept last night, our entire region was pummeled with snow! We kept gleefully looking out the windows at the back of the house to watch the snow blow around and drift, and this morning we were greeted with the following scenes:

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I live pretty close to downtown, and my street is still pretty much impassable. A plow made one sweep down the street, carving a sidewalk-sized path in the street with 4′ drifts on either side. Since I don’t trust my little Escort to make the trek to work, and all of the bus lines are shut down, I’m housebound for the day! It’s too bad we weren’t able to snag more supplies for the basement remodel yesterday before we were snowed in, but we’re still making really good progress.

CategoryYard | CommentNo Comments »

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February 1st, 2011

Bathroom ideas

They came out to the house today in order to mark the yard for the holes they’ll be digging in order to anchor our basement walls and finally fix them. Progress! That means we need to get working on that bathroom in earnest, so we’ll have a usable one available to the construction guys while they’re working and they won’t have to tromp around upstairs, letting the cats escape and causing generalized havoc. Might as well come up with a few plans for the space, amirite?

This is probably what we’ll end up doing in the room. Somewhat boring tile floors that are readily available at the hardware store here in town, with grey or black grout (we learned our lesson with bright white grout in the upstairs bath, that no matter how clean it is, it shows EVERY FLAW and EVERY SPECK OF EVERYTHING, cripes), shallow pedestal and toilet, corner shower stall, and white walls. We’re going simple on the lighting fixture, and there will be a little nook alongside the shower where I want to hang bare pine board shelving for towels and toilet paper. We’ll also need a hook for the hand towel (I love this octopus one), and I’d like to go with a wooden bathmat to carry over the shelving theme. Cute, but a little boring.

If I had my choice, I’d go with a nice punch of color on the floor, like these vivid Mexican cement tiles in a bold graphical pattern. Sigh. Kevin will veto, I’m sure of it.

Also, I’d like to do a large, interestingly-framed mirror that’ll run the length of the space behind the sink and toilet, so I’d better start junk shopping for one. Brand new will be outrageous.

CategoryBasement, Bathroom, Design, Inspiration | CommentNo Comments »

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