Finished at Last!

 The installation of the new carpet in the basement on Tuesday went off without a hitch.  We are so happy to finally have the basement complete.  The installers came at 7:30 a.m. and were out the door before 2:30 p.m.  That gave us some time to start moving items back into place.

A new, thick pad makes the stairs safe and soft.

The same color carpet starts at the stairs
and goes down the hall, into the bedroom,
and into the exercise room directly ahead.

I started with the closets since we had closet items piled on everything in the storage room.  We finished the closets, and then Rick hassled with the closet doors.  Of course, with a thicker pad and carpeting, he had to make adjustments to all three sets of doors to get them to open and close properly.

A left turn at the bottom of the stairs leads to the bedroom.

We spent part of Tuesday afternoon setting up the exercise room with the TV and the three big pieces of exercise equipment: the treadmill, the rowing machine, and the bike.

The exercise room never looked so good!

The equipment fits well, and we can turn off the
front row of lights if we want to watch TV.

The couch adds another type of seating for TV viewing
downstairs.

On Wednesday morning, we finished the "moving back" process.  The extra furniture that we can't quite part with yet now fills the spare bedroom.  The couch is back in the exercise room, and we even had time to hang pictures on the wall.

Closet doors and a Renoir on the wall make the bedroom complete.

The weaving above the couch is a coverlet pattern that Rick wove years ago.  The other art prints on the walls were something we bought at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C. probably 20 years ago.  I found the prints when I was cleaning out the closet and decided that we might as well enjoy Monet's art. We have one Renoir, but the rest are all by Monet.

I will let the pictures tell the real story of the outcome of our basement remodel.

The spare bedroom holds everything but a bed!

Artwork adds the finishing touch to the basement.

Finally Almost Finished

 We started the journey with the flooded basement back in April, and as of tomorrow, we will finally get the first of the finishing pieces in place.  The installers called today to tell us that they will be at our house at 7:30 AM tomorrow to bring in and install our new carpet in the basement.

We spent a few minutes today doing the last preparatory steps.  Rick brought up the remaining hallway carpet which found a new home as throw rugs in our garage. Then we took off the basement door so the workmen can wrangle the carpet down the stairs. 

Right now, the main exercise room has the new lights installed, the closet doors removed, and the floors scraped and ready to be covered again.

The main exercise room has new lights and new
paint. Now we just need new carpet to complete it.

The main room closet is ready for carpet, too. Note
the outline on the floor where a bar once rested when we
bought this house 31 years ago.

The spare bedroom also is newly lighted with newly painted walls.  The closet doors are stored away, and the floor is prepped for a new covering.  We still have not quite decided what will go back in that room.

The spare bedroom looks blue in this photo, but
the new wall color is more of a teal.

This is the only room that we ran out of molding
to put into the closet.  Ah, well...

Rick finished removing the carpet and scraping the hallway today.  Now it, too, is ready for new carpet.We both will be happy to get carpet back on the stairs to cover those pointy tack strips.

The hallway closet, hallway itself, and the stairs
await the new carpet.

Once all of the carpet is complete, we can move back the furniture and hang pictures on the walls.  Only then will we truly be finished with this unplanned basement remodel.

Stay tuned for the "after" pictures, coming soon!