Poor Doggy…

Well, keeping the ball rolling, Jody and I completed Phase II of our basement renovation projects. Media Cabinet, check. Painting, check. With the carpet on its’ way, we had to get cracking on working on the next part of the project. We wanted to make sure we got all the ceiling, walls, doors and trim painted before the new carpet went down, that way we didn’t have to be nearly as careful. As a result we started the prep work on Friday night, and worked through till Sunday to get it all done. Never one to do things half-assed, we started off by filling in all the old holes and sanding everything smooth so that the paint would stick well. We also taped off the critical things, so as not to bung things up too badly during the paint process.

Then, we hit all the surfaces with two coats of our paint (Behr Premium Plus – color Raffia Cream for those interested). One might have been okay, but two coats on the walls just made it that much nicer, and presumably more durable. After that, the baseboards and doors were all given two coats of glossy white paint. The end result is quite stunning, and should be even better once the new carpet goes in.

So, a couple weeks back we finally had the official Nanaimo Bar wetting party. This was a combination grand opening of the bar that I built, along with a birthday party for me. Yup, I’m another year older. 31 years old and it turns out I still know how to party! Good for me, right? Hee hee. At any rate, it was great to finally have a party with the fully renovated basement, and what a great excuse to invite people over, and see some people that I haven’t hung out with in a long time. I’d like to say a big thanks to everyone who made it out at various points in the evening, and a special thanks to those who brought some tasty additions to the liquor cabinet! It was totally unexpected but highly appreciated. I started the night off a little grumpy, as my sister will attest. I was very hungry, and had been training earlier in the day, and suddenly felt rushed to get everything set up for the party. Luckily, after a couple hot dogs and some gin, I settled down quite handily. From that point on, I pretty much moved to behind the bar, which you can see in the picture to the right. If you’d like to see more shots of the party, they’re all over on Flickr (as per usual). If you go through the pictures, you’ll probably recognize some faces from long ago, and you might even notice some eerie differences between this party and parties past. Yup, it’s true, we’re all getting a little older, and it seems the invasion of the little people is upon us all! The first half of the celebration night was happily punctuated by several of our friends’ babies, including my own niece Helena. At one point, I looked around and asked myself what happened to the raging keggers, throwing forks at rare earth magnets on the fridge, while dressed in crazy outfits. Now, it’s all about toddlers pulling themselves across the floor, and laughing at the older ones who are now already getting lippy with us 😉 Crazy stuff. As a result, we had to keep Jonah off by himself till the latter portion of the party, which was the appropriate time to release the ‘party animal’. You know when that is of course. It’s when Matt and Rob started throwing random beer and liquor in the blender, expecting to come out with a delicious drink! Such was not the case. However, it did prompt the transformation to the type of party I’m more used to.