So close, yet so far...
Welcome back, friends! This post is the second post in a 3 part series of turning our scary, damp, spider filled basement into a board game entertainment zone. If you missed part one, demo and resolving water issues, check it out [here].
Lots of progress has been made since we left off. We went from a cramped concrete box to an open concrete box, to what now resembles an actual living space!
First up, finish demo! Apparently there was somehow even MORE to demo. If you read the first part, you know that we thought we were in pretty good shape with most of the old walls and flooring gone. But there always seems to be more…
The crew took out the remaining paneling enclosing the stairs while very carefully not touching the actual stairs (because, if you learn anything from watching HGTV shows about old homes, you never mess with the stairs because code and stuff). Old ducting, electrical, plumbing, and windows were demo’ed out and replaced with fresh and up to code everything. The very best part of a renovation is seeing the plumber scratching his head while staring at your existing pipes saying “that’s not even legal”. Good thing it was all getting replaced anyway!
Now up, rough-ins! The plumber was a regular at our house. Our plumbing was so out of whack the plumber basically reran all the plumbing in the basement and between the basement and main floor to get everything to code. We also now have places for things to drain (that’s a thing, you know) and a backflow preventer to stop our basement from flooding with sewage from the tree roots that are trying to take over the plumbing system from the street.
In addition to our new bathroom with a shower, we are relocating our laundry room to the other side of the basement. Read: lots of plumbing needed to be moved.
Fun fact: Our house was built in 1950 in Minnesota. It gets cold here, and at the time it was frowned upon to put your plumbing right up against exterior walls of the house so the pipes don’t freeze. This means our laundry machines and the aforementioned plumbing were about 4 feet off the wall in the middle of the old laundry room. Read: a 4 foot space where the spiders ruled. Drop a sock? It belongs to the spiders now.
And all that new plumbing meant that basically the entire floor of the basement was jackhammered up, moved, and then re-poured. There were holes into the dirt beneath our house for weeks on end. It was both cool to see and slightly disconcerting to realize a large chunk of your house is currently just dirt.
An equally exciting rough-in to happen was HVAC. It may not seem so exciting, but we previously had a vent in the middle of our stairs (chilly ankles?). There was also no way to open/close said vent and it just seemed to run all the time. In the winter, constant hot air. In the summer, constant A/C – meaning freeze-baby Sarah would need a sweatshirt, socks, and a blanket any time we played a game in the summer.
The previous owners also had an interesting solution to all the dampness in the basement (what ultimately drove us into this project) by installing a bathroom fan in the middle of the room. It was either that or…actually addressing the issue?
The final rough-in was electrical. We walked the space with the electrician picking out every spot for pot lights, outlets, and light switches. THIS WAS AMAZING! Our kitchen upstairs has 2 outlets, so naturally, we asked what number of outlets is considered just shy of “excessive”? And we were allowed to go with that! Holy crap. We put an outlet like every 3 feet downstairs, no joke. No more cords running along the base of the wall or wincing in fear when we plug things in.
Another fun electrical thing, most of our main level is somehow all wired to one breaker. Apparently, technically legal. Our garage, on the other hand, has 8 outlets in it, and is on 8 dedicated breakers. No joke. Once the electrician realized this, and realized how often the breaker would trip when he tried to do literally anything, he upgraded our panel and shifted some things around. We have high hopes that we’ll be able to run the dishwasher and have the light on in the mudroom at the same time.
The next big transformation was drywall going in. Holy crap. We thought we could see how everything came together when the framing went up, but OMG, drywall changed everything. This was the first time we really realized that we were doubling our current living space. This was when it really hit home that the hopes and dreams we had when we bought our house were actually coming to fruition. We are going to have that sweet game room we’ve always wanted.
If you’ve ever talked to anyone who has done a major renovation, they will tell you that the part of the project after the drywall goes up sucks. Taping and mudding takes forever. But nothing is worse than the sanding. Holy smokes, dust everywhere. The dust got everywhere on our main level and even into our upstairs, despite the extensive precautions they tried to take. At some point we just accepted it and gave up trying to keep up with cleaning the dust until the sanding was 100% done. Thankfully that was only about 3 days.
We will leave you today with where things are at currently. The trim, bar cabinets, and bar tops are in various stages of installation and painting. We continue to “ooh and ahh” at everything. The excitement is real y’all. The end is in sight!
This week promises to have paint and touch ups to the walls, cabinets, trim, and ceiling, the bar tops stained, and maybe even the floor being installed.
Once the crew is done, it’s our turn to finish up with some custom shelving and furniture!
Stay tuned for our final update in a couple weeks: the BIG reveal!
Looks awesome and a place you might actually like to frequent!