Extreme Makeover: Basement Edition

I had some "Before" photos in the sidebar for a week or so, but soon there will be "During" photos so I'm making an official post. The materials for sheetrock in our basement will be here on Monday! This journey began two years ago when Brian and his brother, Kyle, framed the family room, office, bedroom, and bathroom. The storage room was already framed and we have cold storage under our front porch where I'm sure a lot of spiders are living now. I can't be 100% sure because there is no light in that room right now and I'm not going in there for anything.

It was surprisingly difficult to come up with a layout for the basement. The way the bathroom had been plumbed (a word?) created a problem and what do you do with a room that is going to be twice as long as it is wide? But we overcame the problems! In the space of just a few weeks, we had an electrician do his thing and plumbers did a rough-in for the tub/shower and sink. We could taste the victory!

Then we got the call that changed everything. We were getting a baby and we had less than a month to get ready for her. Who cared about the basement then? Not us.

So here we are, two years later making progress again. Aron helped Brian finish our new tornado closet in the bedroom. Brian did the heating and air all by himself. I've gone through half of the bizarre collection of crap in our storage room (I found a suitcase with one salad plate and an ice cream scoop in it) and left the other half as a time capsule for Bridget to take care of 50 years from now. We've cleaned up the garbage and swept the floor. And just like the TV show, all our neighbors will come over and work for 48 hours straight to finish the basement before we get back from our all-expense-paid trip to the Resort at Paws Up in Montana (my new dream vacation). Sears will give us a flat screen TV for every room for free. Ty Pennington will put our salad plate and ice cream scoop in a shadow box for the wall since they are clearly treasured objects. And I will cry.