The Home Improvement Post - Basement, 1st Floor

Here is a brief summary of what happened.

In April, our neighbors were getting their house painted and once we saw how good it looked, we decided to ask the guys to paint our house. That was easy enough - a three day job and the house looked great. Well, it didn't stop there. Since these same contractors had done significant work on the neighbor's house, we knew they'd be able to handle any task we threw at them.

Our wish list was long, but the most important project for us was the basement (rip and replace the floor). We got an estimate quickly and asked them to begin the work. This was literally the week Christie had the baby. What was originally planned as a project to be complete BEFORE Willa came home, became a project which was in progress once she actually did come home. She will certainly never be scared or startled by loud noises since she lived for several weeks with the sounds of hammers, saws and construction workers shouting.

The work went smoothly, aside from small unforseen discoveries. In fact, the demolition was over in just a few days. I had posted some photos of the "pit" in the floor if you recall. There was a brief pause and then the subfloor construction began. They basically built a platform using pressure treated 2x4's (laid on their sides) and half-inch plywood. On top of that they fixed wonderboard. Then, they laid the tiles.

The floor extended in to our powder room and as part of the job, they redid the fixtures. That is why we ordered the new sink, toilet and faucet - which was also mentioned in a previous post.

The men finished their work with poplar ("Top of the line" they said... *eyes rolle*) 1x4 trim with small quarter-round since the tiles create an uneven surface at the edges. On door frames they used 1x3 boards.

Our storage area was out of scope so they simply fixed a portion of the wall which had been damaged and laid a simple vinyl tile floor.


In the midst of this project we suddenly decided we were sick of our disgusting floors in the dining room and entry area. So.... we got Kempas floors installed. They didn't install trim, so we spent the last few weekends installing and painting trim.

Painting ---- Yes we love to paint!

Since the work messed up a lot of walls we did a lot of painting. Rooms: basement powder room, basement nook (formerly known as the man room), half of the basement wall, dining room (since the red clashed with the red of the Kempas). And of course we had to paint the trim.

So, here are the galleries: