Last Thursday vs. Today

Firehand’s parents were here for five days helping us put up drywall, mud and tape down in the basement. We actually have rooms again! Here are some pictures to compare and contrast, starting with the family room before:

And after…

Bathroom walls and framed-in shower with new shower pan before…

And after (below)… Installing the shower has been a bit tricky because of the window in the way, which is why it’s not quite finished being walled in yet. The contractor had to frame the shower stall around the window. The minus side to this is that there is a shelf in the shower stall, to the right, below the window. The plus side is that Firehand did an excellent job creating a slight slope to the shelf so that it will drain and not collect water. Because the slope is so slight, the shelf will still be handy to use for holding soap and shampoo bottles.

Also, we now have a little bathroom storage space, where before, when there was a tub/shower, there was none. MIL suggested installing shelves that slide in and out, since the space is narrow and deep, to maximize use of the space. I think it’s a great idea and we’re going to look into how to accomplish this once we get that far along in the building process.

Here we are with the laundry room before (looking through into the bathroom in the first picture)…

And after drywall installation… You may notice that we only did the mud and taping halfway down the wall; that’s because we have another idea for the lower half of the wall, more pics later when that project is completed.

And last, but absolutely not least, our shiny new support post, right where its supposed to be, holding up the house:

And here it is again, hidden in the new walls of the guest room (to the left of the doorway):

Now we just have to mud everything at least 2 more times, sand, prime, texture and paint! And then new carpet, new baseboards, new doors framed and hung, vinyl in the laundry room and bathroom, tile the shower stall, get a new sink and vanity cabinet installed, install the toilet again, install a shower door, finished the new bathroom storage space… yeah, its gonna be a while… and I’m sure I’m forgetting a few things that need done, too…

But we made excellent progress! It’s beginning to look ever so much better!