Reclaiming Our Basement

Phase One: Assess the Damage


Phase Two: Make Necessary Repairs

We had some water damage in our basement while we were in India this past December. The humidifier on our furnace leaked water into the hallway, which then spread to the carpet in the adjoining rooms. Not only are we having the entire basement re-carpeted, we also needed five new doors, door frames, baseboards, and even a small portion of drywall replaced in the bathroom. Phase Two is underway this week, courtesy of our neighbor who is a builder. He installed the new doors yesterday (two of which are solid core, which we didn't have before), and is continuing with the trim work today. Next week, his painter is scheduled to paint our bathroom, and once they are all done we'll have the new carpet installed.

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In the almost ten years we've been in our house, we never really used the basement much though it was fully finished. Now that our entire lower level has become a construction zone, I'm anxious to get it all completed so we can reclaim some additional living space. As Samedh gets older, he'll need so much more room to play and hang out with his friends. We'll still keep one of the bedrooms as a guest room, but the fourth bedroom will become an official exercise room, housing both the treadmill and the weight bench. It will be wonderful to have a family room dedicated for that purpose only...I got so tired of our treadmill being the focal point of that room for so many years. Now I can't say that we'll run out and immediately buy a huge flat screen TV and a cozy couch or two to go with it, but we may have to consider some sort of furnishings in the coming months. I'm already working on painting our old dining room table and chairs to serve as a sort of "activity table" for crafts and games, cards, etc. Additionally, garage sale season is only just a few weeks away...so I'll be keeping my eyes open for some unique pieces of furniture that can be painted or recovered to add some new life to our once barren basement.