The Ancient Basement–Update

We picked out the trim color as I mentioned in my last post, and I have started painting door frames, a window frame, and the two existing metal doors that we are not planning to change out. This paint was a close out that I ended up getting for free and it is SO THICK that I have had to thin it with paint thinner pretty aggressively so that I can brush it on. I have also had to put it through a paint strainer to remove little crumbs of something, but I keep reminding myself that it was free, because otherwise I would be frustrated by this part of the process. Honestly, I have always had this problem with oil based paints and wish that I had been straining it all along, because the finish is so much better.

Now that the paint is up in places, my husband and I agree that we really like the color and that it looks “old”, which is just the look we are going for.

My husband finished the boxes for the grates in the closets by the stove and he cleaned up the grates and sprayed them with lacquer. (He has them dry fitted, but they are not in their final location as far as depth is concerned.) He also finished the electrical work in the closets–lights and outlets. He finally had some time over the weekend to install the OSB. It’s so much easier to see how that space is going to look and feel now that the walls are closed up. We hope to get the OSB finished this week and the cement board installed this weekend.

My husband has been working tons of hours for the past 4 months, but is finally going to get a break near the end of the month, so I have the stone veneer and exterior stone corners being delivered the 3rd week in March. During this week, we are going to work really hard to button up lots of unfinished details on what we’ve done so far and try to get all the stone veneer installed and grouted. Those details include: finish scraping all the closet doors and lacquer them and install hardware; install new door knobs on garage, storm shelter, storage room, and under stairs closet doors; paint remaining door trim; frost windows on doors to storage room and under stairs closet; touch up drywall work; install light fixture in storage room; put thin flagstone on floor under the stove; and I’m sure loads of other things…..

But before we can do that, we have a bunch of furniture to move…..

Wish us luck!