Construction has begun

We were up bright and early Saturday to start putting our basement back together. With the help of Ryan’s sister, brother-in-law and our good friend Jason we got drywall hung in the family room, laundry room and my scrapbooking room. It was actually… kinda… fun. Everyone was laughing and having a good time.

We got the first coat of tape and mud on the family room and my scrapbooking room. Since two walls in the laundry room had a chair rail with wainscoting (pronounced ‘wayne’s coating’) Ryan and I opted to put it along the other wall as well. This meant we didn’t have to take the time to tape, mud and texture that wall. After our help went home we made a trip to Lowe’s (my fourth of the day) for more wainscoting and installed it before we went to bed.

We started again early Sunday morning as well. Brother-in-law Tom helped us sand the family room and apply the second coat of mud. I spent the morning painting the newly applied wainscoting. After Tom left Ryan and I tried hanging drywall in one of the two remaining closets. It didn’t go quite as smoothly as it had the day before. I could see the steam rolling out of Ryan’s ears and decided it was time to call it quits before he burst into flames.

So we spent the afternoon wandering an air conditioned mall not thinking about the basement. We did however purchase the top chair rail to finish off the new wainscoting in the laundry room. Of course we couldn’t find anything to match the other stuff, but after searching three stores it’s close enough. So if you’re ever at our house and notice the trim is a little different – please keep it to yourself.

Steps until it’s finished:

1. Hang drywall in closets and hallway – tape, mud, dry and repeat
2. Paint and install chair rail in laundry room
3. Sand my scrapbooking room, apply second coat of mud and let dry
4. Sand the final coat of mud in the living room and scrapbooking room
5. Texture family room and scrapbooking room
6. Paint walls
7. Lay the new vinyl floor in my scrapbooking room
8. Hope the laminate wood floor goes back down in the family room
9. Install baseboards

Any takers?

A big thank you to Ryan’s mom who not only provided food, but also babysat our nephews so Tom and Melissa could help. Also want to thank Stefany who let us borrow her husband for the day.