Eating an Elephant

They say you can eat an elephant, one bite at a time.  Remodeling is a little like that, especially when you LIVE right in the middle of the mess as is happens.  We have finally finished our basement Family Room over the vacation weekend.  Hoooooooraaaay!  And better yet, our carpet guy is coming in a day to do the hallway and stairs that lead to it......it will be like new!

Back in JULY, our dumpster looked like this after we discovered our basement had been flooding over time.  The break of a sprinkler expedited the discovery.  I can't really say that I was sad to say goodbye to the teal carpet........we already had plans for its demise.  The flood brought more rapid results.

Never did get a picture of the room furnished pre-flood.  It was such a race that day to empty things out....but here it is with the wet carpet, and wet drywall behind.
Long day of moving furniture, and all of the carpet is gone.  Great linoleum underneath, original to the 60s.  Later we found out that this linoleum was laced with ASBESTOS.  We had to have it professionally removed.  Good thing they didn't know we removed our popcorn ceilings ourselves????  

Down with moldy wall #1.  We also had to tear out all of the built in shelves that you can kind of see to the left.  : (

It was Labor Day weekend when the new drywall began going up.  It went pretty fast, and we were so excited that the end was near.......till we discovered the other wall was moldy too.

Down goes wall #2 and #3.  Someone brilliant had glued the drywall to the concrete here.  

No wonder it was moldy.

So a few more weeks until the walls were finished.

Sealing the mold in with paint.

Framing it up for the new drywall.

Up goes the green wall.

A little mud and taping to do.

Blowing on some texture.  Notice the cloud I am in.

I had done a little texturing before, but after this huge room, I am feeling like a pro.

Asbestos guys came and removed the linoleum.  The black floor is the remainder of the mastic adhesive that dyed the concrete.

Walls and ceiling painted.

All ready for tile.  But this pile is HUGE!!!

Tiling for a few days.  Sometimes there has to be a teacher inservice day!

All tiled, ready for grout.

Trimming everything---walls and windows.

And finally, this past weekend, we moved the furniture back in.

We chose out an area rug that is coming home this week.  Hopefully tile will be a good choice in case of future flooding!

Now we need to warm it up with some books back on the shelves, pictures on the walls, and kids rolling around on the floor!