3 years

Happy 3rd anniversary to my wonderful, handsome, fun, kind, smiley, intelligent, amazing Blake-o!

Adios UFO's

For those of you who might be wanting to see progress on our basement...remember when I spent a week painting the pine paneling back in January of 2010?  Well, the basement reno has basically been stalled since then while I attended to the scads of other project ideas whirling around in my mind.

The catalyst that finally got us moving on our wish list was the sump pump installation.   As you can see from previous photos, the installation left us with a half cement/half linoleum tile floor circa a 1950's grade school cafeteria.  It was fun while it lasted, but that combo had to go. 

Our contractor team is wonderful.  They've been working non-stop since Monday morning and have transformed the place.  It's not finished yet, but so far they've:

-Removed the horrible UFO drop-lights.
-Torn out the recycled paper tile ceilings.
-Installed 13 (it's finally light down there!) can lights.
-Rewired the light switches and installed dimmers.
-Removed existing crown moulding.
-Installed drywall on the ceiling.
-Created a drywall box for some of the exposed duct work (we're leaving some of it exposed so as not to use up any of the precious ceiling height).
-Installed new crown moulding around the ceiling.
-Installed a new entry door, moulding and thresh hold.
-Created a built-in media console in the wall by the fireplace (it's all dead space under the stairs, so we decided to make use of it by building something in, rather than taking up space in the narrow room with a piece of furniture).

Phew. That's a lot.  I'm tired on their behalf.

Today they're going to:

-Paint the ceiling, window casings and crown moulding.
-Remove the current baseboards and shoe moulding.
-Prep for tomorrow's flooring installation.

Anyhow, here's some pictures of the progress.  We rush home every night after work and are consistently blown away by the quality and beauty of their work!  It's like Christmas morning every time we get home and walk down the stairs to check it out. 

I can't wait to show off (I mean, let's call it what it is, I'm totally showing off, but I don't care because I'm sooo excited about it!) the finished product.  You may just die seeing it. 

P.S.  If anyone in the DC area is in need of a fabulous contractor, let me know.  Tony does stuff for Blake's whole family and always does a fabulous job at rock-bottom prices. 

Ash Wednesday

I've really not got much to report.  No funny stories.  No dead family members of any current contractors.  No angry homeless people throwing drinks at me.  Nothing.

My life lately has been consumed with work, friends, family and drywall dust.  Tony, our favorite contractor, started in on our basement renovation on Monday morning at the bright (read: gloomy/fatigued) early hour of 7:00. 

Blake spent four hours (and, well, I won't even tell you how much money) with Tony at Home Depot while I cleaned the other two floors of our house and did the much-needed grocery shopping.  Then, are you ready for it, we went back to Home Depot again that afternoon to spend even more money.  We also made stops at Best Buy and Target.  Why is it that every budgeted renovation ends up making you hemorrhage cash?

Anyhow, the day was completely exhausting and I have now sworn off shopping for the rest of my life. 

Oh the drama.  Ok, not the rest of my life, maybe just the rest of the month.  I'm sure I'll regret that statement, so lucky for me it's the shortest month of the year.

Having some fun Valentimes

Last night Blake and I treated ourselves to our annual Valentine's Day dinner at Fajita Coast.  It's our go-to place (I hate to think of the thousands of dollars we've probably spent there over the past few years...) and we're never disappointed.  It's a perfect place to go on a night when all restaurants are packed-to-the-brim.  We know the staff there really well and they always get us a table quickly.

I am not the biggest Valentine's Day fan, but nothing beats a weekday evening where we don't have to cook or clean up.  (Sigh).  It's so luxurious.

After successfully convincing Blake not to buy me an (extremely overpriced) bouquet, he surprised me with the best flowers of all:

Now I have poppies that I can enjoy every day.  Thanks, Blake-o!

Cha cha cha changes.

Having our basement jackhammered last week was the catalyst we needed to jump-start our search for new flooring.  Maybe it's because the rest of the reno process has been so painful and we deserved some cosmic justice, or maybe it's just luck, but we found the perfect flooring after visiting only two stores.  Soon that horrible cement will be covered with beautiful hand-scraped cherry (on the top of the pile of wood samples).  I can hardly wait!

Oh, and that tumbled travertine tile?  Well, that's just back splash daydreaming at this point...