Oh yea, the Basement

So... for the past six months, we've had a major "under"taking in our basement (ha. ha. The pun? Yea, lame, sorry). I've only updated on our progress once or twice. Ever. Hmm... bad blogger.

Anyway, Bobby has been working away to make our once unfinished basement into a new living area for our growing family. He has been working over-time on this project with the impending arrival of our little Peanut on his shoulders. Our guest room has since been transferred into a nursery, so we have to move quickly in order to get our guest room back. In addition to that room, we will also have a full bathroom down there, complete with a toilet! Hooray! The rest of the basement (which is roughly the size of the footprint of our house) will be a free room, where we hope to make into an additional and more casual living space. Mama wants no toys in the upstairs living space, so most of the toys (hopefully) will be housed in the basement. Current Moms, I can already hear you laughing...

Every day, I am thankful that I married a handy husband, since he's done most of the work himself. On top of working full-time, going to school for his masters and dealing with a pregnant wife, I commend him. Plumbing and framing were in his hands. We had to hire out an electrician due to St. Mary's County laws, and we've hired drywall experts since that's too big a job for just Bobby himself. All of this has saved us a tremendous amount of money!

Over the past 6 months, we've developed quite a relationship with the employees at our local Lowes. Every Saturday, we make no less than 2 trips to Lowes. They are all nervous to tell us anything negative so that I "won't Pop!" Thanks...

Anyway, today marks a big step in progress for our little basement: the drywall guys are here are they are MOVIN.' In no less than 5 minutes of being here, we heard screws turning and drills going. They mean business! Which is fabulous. They should be finished hanging everything today and will come back in a few days to do the mudding and taping. After that, Team Barrick is taking over to tile, prime & paint, install the flooring, doors and trim. *Hint, Hint, Mom and Dad Barrick*

For now, I thought I'd show you where we are in the process pre-drywall. Once the drywall is up, progress will be more apparent, so I'll give you more updates!

It's a little difficult to tell what's what without the drywall in place, but hopefully you can get the idea. Oh, and there's also a secret game of "Where's Waldo" going on in these pictures. Except I've changed the name to "Where's Killian."

Enjoy!

This will be open living space. TV on the wall to the right and couch right in front.

I cannot even tell you what a deal we scored on this flooring. For those interested, I will attempt to break down our budget and costs for this whole project. Just to give you an idea, our budget was $8K - equal to the Homebuyers Tax Credit we got last Spring. Woot!