Alright, You've Been Patient Enough...

So I'm hesitant to say this, but I think our basement is FINISHED. The last contractor finished up yesterday. Now I think the only things left are rehanging the towel rack in the bathroom and putting furniture and "stuff" back downstairs. Check out the life, death and rebirth of our basement below...

Basement as we bought it:



Basement 2 Weeks into Home Ownership:


And finally... The basement as it currently resides. Yes, we will one day add furniture and decor:

So glad that they were able to match the tile!

Now, onto the laundry room. All you need to know is that the tile did not match the basement, nor was it all the same tile. The previous owner had thrown in some random color variation for fun. There were also random pipes jutting out of the bathroom wall under the utility sink. We just wouldn't stand for that!

The tile in the laundry room is now a smaller cut of the same tile used in the main room in the basement. Cohesive, I like that.

Now, my favorite part of all. The bathroom.
Original Bathroom:


Bathroom 2 Weeks into Home Ownership:

We can't forget about that buried trash can...So strange.

Drum Roll Please...
New Bathroom:

I'm a big fan of the new tile. What do you think?


Now onto buying new furniture for the living room upstairs and decor (yes!!!) and of course, unpacking all the junk in the guest room.

It is so nice to have a functioning basement again!!!!

Dilemma...

Have you heard? Our basement is done (minus fixtures)!!!! We will finally be able to start cleaning and moving stuff down there again soon. Now here's the dilemma:

We currently have this vanity sink in the basement bathroom.

Lowes.com

We still like the vanity, but the granite counter top matches the granite that used to be in the bathroom and no longer matches our new tile. We were planning to simply buy a new black granite counter top. But here's the thing, this counter top is 28" x 22" and apparently that size does not exist anywhere else except for on this specific vanity. What to do? New vanity/counter altogether? That's pricey. Have a custom granite piece fitted? That's pricey, too. I'll let ya'll know what we decide. When everything is back in place (i.e. toilet, washer/dryer, sinks, etc.), I will post pictures of the final result!

On another note, I have been working in my classroom for the past two weeks, getting everything ready for the first day of school. Can you believe that school starts on Tuesday!? Although I have some last minute things to do, I definitely feel 150% more organized for the first day than I did last year. Three cheers for not being a first year teacher anymore!!!

Miscellaneous...

I promise my blog will get more interesting after the basement fiasco is over...well, I can't promise but you can hope! The simple things, like tile being laid, make me very, very happy these days.
Look, no holes in the floor!
The progress is slow, but I'm starting to feel like they might finish one day.

A smaller version of the main floor tile will be going into the laundry room:

On another note, Sarah and Kiki stopped by on Sunday to check out the (dusty) house for the first time and to visit. That girl has a lot of energy. She's sooo cute!!
She even says, "Cheese!" for the camera. She's pretty much at the stage where everything she does is adorable.
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I've been feeling a bit guilty because I haven't been excited to go back to school (probably because I taught ALL summer). Today was our first work day and I'm happy to say that I'm starting to feel a little more excited. It took pretty much the whole day to rip down the old paper on the walls and to put up new. You can't imagine what a pain it is to try to put paper over chalkboards. It's starting to look a little better...except, I don't know what I was thinking, but I put up ORANGE paper all over the front wall. I'm more of a cool, calm colors person. Blues, greens, but definitely not orange. I don't think that's going to calm anyone down!

Disaster Area

Check out the "progress" in the basement. Doesn't look like progress, I know. I can't wait until there aren't dusty footprints in my house anymore.

On one hand, it's been a great week for them to start work on the basement again since I have the week off. On the other hand, it's my only week off until we have to report back to school and I am a prisoner in my own home answering questions about drywall and pipes. Boo. I can't wait until I don't have to listen to saws and power tools anymore. Will that day ever come??? From the main room, you can now gaze into the bathroom and shower:

Finally...

After a lot of waiting for the insurance company, work on the basement begins again today. They will start repairing the tile today and hopefully the laundry room will be finished this week so we can do laundry in our own home again!! After the tile is repaired, they will tear out the drywall that got wet and replace it. After that, it should be all done and ready for clean up. I CAN'T wait to move all the junk down to the basement! Mostly, I can't wait for the guest room not to look like this:


Atrocious, I know.

We were in Ann Arbor this weekend and stopped by World Market I had already thought of what I wanted for the wall decor in the dining room and found exactly what I was picturing at World Market. We bought two of the handmade Wood and Iron Panels which actually proved to be quite tricky to hang. We finally got them on the walls, mostly even, and realized that one panel was about 1/2 an inch longer than the other. I guess that's what happens when you buy handmade, but it looks strange. Now we have to figure something else out. But I still love them...what do you think? I also really loved these Concave Iron Leaf Panels. Maybe those would be easier to use?

Beige or Green?

Gil & I went to pick out new tile for the basement bathroom this morning at Virginia Tile Company, which has a great showroom. We have pretty similar taste so we quickly narrowed our top choices. We like a natural stone look. We left the showroom having chosen a beige tile and we were able to bring home samples. Once I was home and looking through the Casa Dolce Casa tile magazine, I decided that the green looked more bathroom-y.

Casa Dolce Casa

OR

Casa Dolce Casa

Keep in mind, the tile in the basement (currently) looks like this:
American Olean

What do you think...beige or green??

Basement Updates

Our house is now properly plumbed...score! Is "plumbed" the right word? I'm going to go ahead and use it.

As you can tell, our house doesn't look nice yet but at least the piles of sand are gone. As of now, the correct pipes are in the ground and the sand is covering them once again. This week they also put concrete over the sand. The tile and drywall guys came out today to check things out and should begin working by the middle of next week. Originally, they were trying to salvage some of the granite shower and were going to replace it with matching granite. Looks like that's not going to happen, so they are tearing it out and starting from scratch. What does that mean for us? We get to pick out the new materials. Looks like we might be spending our 1st anniversary at the tile store. :)

Don't You Love What We've Done with the Place?

As many of you have heard, we've had some major plumbing problems with the house...mainly the basement. Since we're not able to use the water right now, we've been staying in a hotel the last three nights and were thinking we wouldn't be back in the house until maybe Saturday, but it sounds like we might be able to come back tomorrow!

They began working on the basement on Monday and they've definitely transformed the space. It's not exactly what I was envisioning for the basement, but it has to be done.

Let me refresh your memory...beautiful granite, tiles, you know, a FLOOR.

Before=Lovely


And after, oh the horror...


I've always wanted a trench in my home, haven't you?

Sandcastle anyone?

And the bathroom is another story...
Before=Granite, Wonderful Granite


Hold tight to this image...remember it, savor it, luxuriate in it.
Because all good things come to an end...

I wish, wish, wish these were the before pictures, not the afters!