Progress

Matt has been working hard in the basement. Sometimes he feels like he has not gotten much done, but he really has done a lot. Before he could even start framing in the walls. He had to:
1. Destroy and old, useless piano with a Sawzall. Then haul it up in pieces to burn. The metal had to be hauled up also. Thanks to Shelby who assisted with this.
2. Redo the plumbing so that we could put walls and a ceiling up.
3. Redo the heating ducts so that we had vents down there for heat and air.

Once that was done he started framing. He now has Jake's room completely framed in. He is working on the "Game Room" framing right now. There will be a pocket door separating the unfinished basement from the finished part and we will also be adding in a closet somewhere to keep board games in. After the framing he will start the wiring.

Yesterday, I left to go to one of my daycare kids birthday party. When I returned home I found that there were no basement stairs! He realized when he was getting ready to frame the wall for the pocket door that he needed to deal with the stairs before that. The people who put the stairs in never intended on finishing the stairway. There was not room to drywall and finish the stairway because the stairs were to wide. So out they came yesterday afternoon. We almost had two dogs stuck in the basement however. Matt started tearing out the stairs at the bottom. He got a couple out and then realized that both dogs were hanging out downstairs with him. They like to watch him work. Don't ask me why. So he had to put the part he had tore out back and got the dogs to go up. Whew! That was close! Right now there is just a ladder. Matt came back from Menard's last night with boards and two bags of water softener salt and then realized that he had to haul that down a ladder somehow. It reminded Jake and I of the scene's in the Tom Hank's movie "The Money Pit" (one of my favorite movies, the other being "Turner and Hooch") where he has to haul water up the ladder and a mattress among other things because their stairs had collapsed. Don't worry, Matt made it safely down. I will be honest though, I did not watch!

Matt has had a helper the last two weekends. Jake spent all day last Sunday helping his Dad and is down there as I type this helping with the stairs. I think now that he can see what things are going to look like he is getting excited and wants to help. I love that they are spending time together like that. Well, I need to go deliver some coffee and hot chocolate down to the hard workers! Here are some pictures of the stairs out and Jake's room all framed up.