Yearly archives: 2005

Okay, although I’m getting increasingly tired and grumpy, I’ve finished phase III of the basement project. For the past 2 weeks, I’ve basically been up till 11 or 12 each night working on all these projects. It’s the curse of being a perfectionist. The good news is that we’ve got everything finished off that we wanted to have done before the carpet goes down, which is on Monday. Of course we’re leaving on a bus to NY tonight, so timing was of the essence.

Earlier, I had lamented to Kev that I thought putting down the laminate should only take about 40 minutes. Well, while that may be true, it didn’t account for the prep of vapor barrier, cutting the pieces to the perfect size, trimming the lip on the edges where it was needed, installing the plastic track and mitring in for the trim and clean-up! Long story short, I basically worked on this from 7pm till 11:30pm! D’oh! So much for an easy project. At any rate, the finished product looks great in my opinion. I even thought we should’ve maybe done the whole rec room with this. I’ll probably end up renovating my studio with it next.

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.

G’day folks. Well, as you can see by the picture, the first step on our basement renovation is essentially completed! Last night at 10pm, I finished building the media cabinet that is built into the wall in the rec room. A while ago Jody and I decided that this fall / winter would be the time we finally renovate the basement. We spend 80% of our time there, so we figure it will be money well spent. The master plan calls for new paint, new carpet, new couch, built in media centre for home theatre stuff, installation of laminate in bar area, and finally the piece de resistance, my new oak bar!

We’ve got the ball heavily rolling now. We ordered our carpet, ordered our couch, bought the paint, bought the bar materials, and as you can see, I’ve built the cabinet. If you’d like to see other pictures of the project, head on over to our flickr sets and check out the basement renovation shots. I’ll update it as we go along.