In usual Randy fashion he just decided to start renovating the basement the other day. It started out that he wanted to see if there was insulation in the headers so he took one or two roof panels off. From there we went to this in a matter of days:
Yup…I kind of had a temper tantrum and gave him like two days to clean it up. So like a good boy, he did. He had a dumpster dropped off in our driveway!
So since he did this, he has cleaned it all out, cut out the doorway that you see in the top right picture, and wired in pot lights throughout. This weekend he is moving a wall and rebuilding a closet to make the whole room bigger. So far it has only cost us like $75 for the pot lights. He is saving all the good wood that he’s taking down and will re-use the wall that he is moving to rebuild it in a different spot. So really it is not costing us much.
The next stage is we are taking down all the panelling on all the walls and replacing the insulation in the walls and putting insulation in the headers. There is no insulation in any of the headers in the basement!!! No wonder the floors upstairs are always cold and there is no snow around the whole house for a foot! After we insulate and poly it all we will have to stop for a few days. The next stage is to drywall and it will cost around $500 for that so we have to budget it in. But realistically it should be mostly done by the summer. It will be nice to have a place to go when it’s hot upstairs in the summer.
The other changes we have planned for the basement are a new furnace and reconfiguring the bathroom to include the washer and dryer and installing a bathtub and shower. The current shower stall is no good and needs to be taken out so we are going to put in a cheap tub with a shower. Then we will need to put in a doorway to the furnace room. We saved the one Randy took out and will just re-use it.
Of course there will be paint but I will do the painting. We are hiring a friends’ husband to come and do the mudding and taping in the basement because we both suck at it. Then we will install new carpet throughout. The carpet will be last…and likely the most expensive. But Randy knows how to install it so it won’t cost us for labour. We aren’t going fancy with it but we will need around 900 sq feet so it will be a bit pricey.
The goal is to update it and make it a cozy family room and play area for Ethan. I cannot imagine what this will do for improving our appraised value on the house. I can’t wait to bring our realtor back to see what she thinks. She was impressed with just our improvements in the little decor changes we made right after we moved in and told us that she was excited to see what we would do in the rest of our house.
I will keep you posted as we complete the work, it will be fun the show the progress in pictures!
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