Almost there!!!

Yesterday I got the last coat of paint on the last couple of wall and we scraped all the drywall mud off the floor, sanded the trim in the stairwell and gave the stairwell trim the first coat at around 11pm and then I gave it another coat when my alarm clock woke me up at 2:30. (YUCK!)

(first thing the kids did when the carpet guy left was fall all over the floor - it was really cute!)

This morning the carpet guys came and "ta-da" the carpet is installed and we're at the finish line!!! YAY!!! Tonight we will paint the trim and this wknd Braden will trim up the 4 doors and do the baseboards (inbetween a BBQ and a photo shoot that Kaleb and Navia have for the Children's Wish Foundation - yep, we make our kids work for their school clothes - hehehe!) So it's almost over - which is a good thing because my first class is on Tuesday @ 4:15pm and I've been so busy doing the basement with Braden (okay, so painting - B's been doing everything else) that I haven't gotten to any lesson plans yet - oops!

The Basement Saga continues . . .

Well - there definitely is something to be said about viewing a house before you have purchased it - but if you can't you can't - and well - we couldn't. That leaves us where we are today...

You gotta love the trimmed wall and spray-painted ceilings/duct work/insulation!!!

We loved our house (the main floor and upstairs), but the basement - well - I'm pretty sure 'like' didn't even get brought up in our conversation when we first saw it (after we moved in!). It was horribly done, spray-painted black ceilings, door trim cut to fit electrical sockets, crooked walls - okay, so it was sold as an unfinished basement, but it would have been easier to finish it if it was a bit more "unfinished" than it truly was.

At first we thought that I'd be teaching Music for Young Children starting in January (2 weeks after we moved in) so we worked like crazy to at least paint the studio area and then buy a remenient piece of carpet that almost covered the entire area, bought a couple Billy bookcases from IKEA and then . . . no classes . . . oops! Well at least it gave the kids a place to play for the winter instead of just upstairs!

Note: the carpet doesn't reach the side wall - oops!!!

So, while I was away in Saskatchewan with the kids Braden now had to fix all the past-owners mistakes and drywall the studio room in, etc so that we could make it into a real studio for my teaching. By himself he pulled off all of the trim around the ceiling and floors (yep - they trimmed the ceiling!), did the electrical and gave me pot-lights in the ceiling now, framed in everything and then drywalled it all. When we got back from Saskatchewan he's now been working on the mudding and sanding of it all (YUCK!!!) I do not envy him at all!!!

So . . . I start teaching September 9th . . . which means . . . the entire basement needs to be finished mudding/sanding, primed, painted, carpeted, trimmed, electrical "details" finished and set up for a studio within 16 days - and that's not really giving me any time to set up. He will be also building me a built-in bookcase for one area, but we're going to wait until next month to even start that project. Emma's desk is before it (and it does feel nice to have a garage that I know I can do my trim painting, etc in - much better than the basement - oh and Brade can keep his saws out there so that the dust doesn't get into the house - YAY!!!) So now everyday after Braden does a full day at Fuel Industries he comes home, changes into his "yucky" clothes, goes downstairs and works until really late. Then on the weekend he gets to spend both his days off doing this - isn't he such a lucky guy!!! We definitely love him for all he does for us!!! Thanks Brade!!!

Doesn't he look impressed!!!