New flooring

Well, after a turbulent month things are starting to get back to some semblance of normality. Drexel Interiors came out Thursday and Friday and put down my new basement flooring. We decided to go with an inexpensive vinyl flooring instead of doing the laminate hardwood again. We got something that can withstand a little water on it without ruining it, just in case. It has a wood pattern and looks fairly similar to the old flooring.

After letting it set for a couple days we went down Sunday and put everything back to it's original place. The only thing that's not the same is the fireplace surround. The base had gotten ruined (particle board soaks up water -> mold) so I ripped it off. I'll build a new one some day. Right now it's just sitting on the floor without the base.

I took a few pictures this morning. Here they are.

The Flood

I went in thinking that our basement would never flood. That only happens to other people. In 8 years in the house we've had some hellacious storms and never had a drop of water down there.

Well, that has changed now. Friday night I went down there and found about a quarter inch of water covering everything. I got it cleaned up but had a hockey game so I left thinking I would fix everything in the morning.

That was a mistake. By Saturday morning it had REALLY flooded and now the "floating floor" was really a floating floor, felt like walking on a water bed.

It flooded one more time before I finally got it under control but the damage had been done. All the flooring was ruined. I spent the rest of Saturday until about 10pm tearing all the flooring out and taking it to the curb. None of it was salvageable.



I don't think I want to go through that again so now we're thinking about painting the floor with an epoxy based paint. You can get some cool colors and do some interesting things so that it won't even look like concrete. For example, check out some of the work these people do (local to Madison). Artisan Designs, LLC.

I still have some other ruined stuff to take out to the curb but my back and legs are so sore they're going to have to wait.

DVD Closet

I spent the weekend converting the small closet at the bottom of the stairs into a DVD storage area. Here are some pictures.

Trim complete

Finished the trim in the workout room this weekend.
Only things left:
- putty the nail holes in the workout room and the stairway.
- touch up paint
- set up equipment and tv in workout room
- 2 closet doors
- built in bookcase/shelving in pub room

Getting close to the first poker party!

Carpet Installation

The guys from Home Depot installed the carpet for the stairs and workout room this morning. Now I can finish the trim work. Here are a couple pictures.





Also, I bought a new 57" Mitsubishi DLP (1080p) tv for the living room and will be moving my current 55" Mitsubishi rear projection (1080i) tv to the pub room. Not sure how I'm going to get it down there but I will!

Pub Room - Guinness Style

We were able to get all our Guinness stuff hung this weekend and I was also able to hook up the tv/entertainment center too.
Here are some updated pictures. I also updated the overall cost of the project as well. We've had some overruns!

Pub room looking good

Well, this took a whole week of vacation but we finally got it looking like something. The workout room and the stairs are going to be carpeted, we're just waiting on home depot to do that. Only thing left in the pub room is hooking up the tv, hanging the pictures and building the built-in bookcase.

I'll update the cost once I've added up this week's purchases; they were numerous.