As this web site content gets closer to the present day, here's something we finished about two months ago: our basement! My dad and I got to work finishing the basement about a week after we moved in - right after the flood in fact. Here are a few photos of the process.



We started things off by building a wall between the furnace and what was to be Jason's office.



Here is a bit of a broader picture of the wall. It extends from one end of the room to the other with a large entrance way at the end of the hallway.



A bit of an idea of how things looked before we got started with the drywalling. This wall, as it happens, wasn't properly attached and secured to the ceiling when they dropped our vent to the floor. When we were drilling the drywall into the studs, we discovered that if you pushed on the wall, it actually moved quite a bit. A nice little surprise from Bay West. Fortunately because we built a sturdy ceiling which comes to a joint at the corner of the wall and the ceiling, we stablized it without too much effort. Still kind of unnerving though, knowing that the tradesguys were too lazy to screw a few more screws into place to hold the wall steady.



I look kind of like an abominable snowman here, but we had to cover up to do the insulation. The itching is unbearable if you get the little pieces of fibreglass under your skin. We only had to insulate the ceiling, because all the walls had already been insulated by Bay West (they did a good job on the insulation and sealing, with the exception of the hole in our house by the power panel). We're planning to finish the other half of the basement sometime soon. We also need to insulate and drywall our garage. Because our bonus room sits on top of it, it gets quite cold in the winter when the garage is the same temperature as outside (Bay West insulated part of the garage ceiling, but not all of it). For those of you who live in or have been to Calgary, we've had two snowstorms in May already...



This is what the ceiling looked like after the insulation went in and the drywall was secured. This was the most intense job - finishing the ceiling. My neck was killing me after all the mudding was done. My dad, fortunately, is quite tall so he did the sanding.



My dad and I doing some drilling. We finished the ceiling with drywall - that was quite a feat. Jason came down and helped my dad hold the pieces of drywall up while I screwed them into place.



Nearing completion, the walls had a coat of paint on them. My dad is a professional painter by trade, and a perfectionist to boot! Everything looks great down here thanks to him. He spent nearly three weeks worth of evenings over here with me, along with a few weekends too, getting everything finished. It took about three weeks from start to finish, which, all things considered, is pretty fast. Suffice it to say I was getting kind of tired of poor Jason having to work off the kitchen table. We weren't able to totally settle in until he was down here and set up.

All in all, my dad and I enjoyed some quality time together, and we completed Jason's office! We still have the hallway, storage room and bathroom to finish though. Hopefully we'll at least get a good start on them this summer.

Thanks for all your help dad - couldn't have done it without you! You're the best. :-)