Yeah, I like that much better.

And I'm going to have to keep telling myself that, b/c things are driving me nuts right now.

Comcast was able to get the basement cable working for about two weeks. I went downstairs hoping to watch some Supernatural while finishing up the caulking, and oops, no signal. Reset, guided set up, nothing's working. So instead I used up the rest of the caulk while I was trying to get this fixed over the phone. Nice try, no go. This will never end.

Of course, while I do this I just keep telling myself how much more I like the space now, and that helps calm me down.

Listing photo

Now

Yeah, that's more our speed. 

listing photo

now

Kind of a crappy, cloudy day to sit around and bother with comcast, which is coming through in my dark, fuzzy pictures compared to the listing. Still looks a lot more presentable though.

It makes me wish we had taken more pictures down here with the paneling up b/c it looks so much nicer now. There are definitely some rough spots but overall it's a big improvement. Hopefully we're not huddled together for warmth when we do anything downstairs this winter.

The fortuitiousness of extra materials

Boy that’s a fancy title. 

I have a felt banner from college that I never had a good way to display but have always wanted to put up somewhere. It doesn’t help that the banner never wanted to lay flat on anything and curls up from the bottom when it’s on a wall. I had it stashed on a shelf in the garage with the intention of getting around to it someday.

Thankfully, I bought more 1x2” than I needed for the two floater frames, and had a moment of inspiration when I realized I was possibly looking at a solution to how to hang this banner. It seems the banner’s “someday” had finally come. 

Quickly eyeballing a frame, with some glue and joiners this was an easy build. The trick, like always, is in the details. I went with the gunstock stain b/c I still love how the table looks, and not everything in the house has to be walnut.

That was quick.

A few quick poly coats for shine and voila, the frame is done. 

late-night staining after everyone else has gone to bed has become a regular event

Without plans I wasn't sure if this would work, but the top and bottom of the frame got two additional runners across to give the banner something extra to anchor to. In the end it wound up working pretty well.

Do I turn a room in to a Notre Dame room now? Probably not.

To get the banner up I went low-tech. I thought about stringing picture wire across the top to hang it, but instead just taped it to some cardboard cut smaller than the frame and then taped that to the top of the frame. The wife immediately noticed it doesn’t quite fill the frame (and pulled the whole thing off the frame, thank you very much), but again I think that’s b/c the banner itself isn’t square and wants to curl up. It's stapled in now and hasn't moved since. In any case, it’s a step up from being balled up on a garage shelf, now I just need to get a thumbs up on somewhere to hang it. 

Wait, so that's the last step?

Picking out door and window trim meant all that was left was getting the baseboards in, and guess what I spent this weekend doing? That’s right, trying to find an excuse not to do the baseboards. 

But none were to be found, and we got one step closer to calling this project done. “But wait,” you’re thinking, “weren’t the baseboards all that was left?” Yes and no.

Yes b/c that was the last step in the initial plan, but like anything else, the initial plan has a tendency to change. So while this is almost done, there are new next steps to finish.

I'm too old to keep moving furniture around.

We picked a very simple trim to match the doors and windows but it was still not without its issues. I had to move the coaxial box a little higher (still kicking myself for how that came together), move a couple of door stops, and pull a handful of nails before all the walls were ready. But once they were things were pretty easy. At this point cutting miters and nailing trim seems pretty simple compared to everything else.  

Again, looking so much better not even 100% finished.

So that’s about it; walls are done, trim is in, tv is up, things are pretty much in their final form. Things still need to be caulked, I’m planning on tiling the fireplace, and the wife is talking about trying a spray texture, but things are pretty much how they’re going to be. And I have to say, I love it. I'd love it even more if the cable kept working but whatever. It’s not perfect, but we did it all for under two grand, counting the tv (but not the couch). I will take some slight imperfections and a savings of several thousand dollars over having had someone do this for us. Plus, I got a lot of mileage out of having something physical to do this spring/summer.

Totally worth it.