Basement Remodel

I’m going to stray away from my Parker blogging for a second to update everyone on the progress of our basement! What a project this has been!

Right after the wedding Kris and I started talking about how much we’d love to have a finished basement. Our basement is large, about 1300 square feet, and it seemed like such a waste for us to leave the space unfinished. We also decided around the same time to start trying for a baby in January so we knew that the sooner we could start on the basement the better!

So late that November we got the ball rolling. And yes, I mean we! Even though I was pregnant from practically the beginning of the project, I helped Kris out as much as I could as long as there was nothing involving chemicals or fumes or anything that could potentially harm little Parker. I hate sitting around and being bored so I was happy to be working alongside Kris.

I’ve always known Kris to be the smartest person out there, but I was seriously amazed once we started on the basement. If he didn’t know how to do something he researched and found out the best possible way to do it. We're finishing our basement up to code so everything that Kris does is being inspected and I'm proud to say that he has passed the many inspections with no problems!

Since Parker has arrived the basement project has slowed waaaaaay down. I no longer help out since I spend all weekends snuggling with Parker and Kris has went from working almost all weekend on it to just a few hours each weekend. It will be nice when it's done but family comes first :)

Here's some photos before we start any work on the basement. It was a completely unfinished space!















































We went to work one day with no window...
































...and came back to one! An egress window in a bedroom is required for the basement to be up to code and even if it wasn't I would have still wanted to have one. The peace of mind that I get from having an escape in case of a fire is priceless. This is the only thing that we hired out. Kris was actually considering doing this himself but when it comes to ripping concrete out of the foundation of our house, I would much rather leave that to the contractors! I didn't need to be searching for Kris under piles of concrete if something went wrong ;)
































This next part of the project was the most terrifying for me. Kris used a concrete saw and cut into the basement floor in order to run plumbing to the bathroom. I did not leave the house the entire day he was working on this in case I had to call 911! Thankfully I didn't have to :)




























































































































Here's round one of insulation. We put up foam insulation and later your typical fiberglass insulation. We want to protect the basement as much as possible from mold. We have heard way too many horror stories of basements growing mold from lack of proper insulation and didn't want to ever run into the same problem.































































































Syd being a great help!

































Framing the basement was one of my favorite parts because it was so cool to see the rooms start to develop!




















































































































































The start of our bar! I went out shopping one day and I came home to this. I didn't even realize that Kris was going to build a bar that day so I was quite impressed when I got home!






























































Our home builders did not construct the house in a way that made it easy to get things down to the basement so our only option to get the drywall downstairs was to cut a hole in our bedroom floor! We were able to pull up the carpet and put it back down when we were finished. You can't even tell that there was ever a huge gaping hole there!





















Kris carried all this drywall from our garage to our bedroom, slid it down the hole in our bedroom floor, and went to the basement to stack it up. All this was done on one of the hottest days in the summer. You don't need to hit the gym when you're doing this sort of workout!







Drywall is up! This is our main room. In no time we'll have a fully stocked bar, a huge TV on the wall, and plenty of comfy couches to relax in! And of course a million toys since they've already taken over our house...and Parker is only four months old!

















The bar!




















A couple more shots of the main room. It will be so nice to have all this extra space!
































































The bathroom.

































The workout room, which will probably become more of a playroom for Parker. We bought this deep freezer right before I returned to work and it's been a lifesaver. I'm able to make meals during the weekends when Parker is asleep and freeze them for us to eat during the week. Since our time with Parker is so valuable and we're so busy, we don't have the desire or time to cook like we used to. The deep freezer lets us still have home cooked meals so that we can stay healthy!







Storage room.



Bedroom.















































































More storage.






































































I'll be sure to update more pictures as the basement progresses. I'm proud that I was able to help out with the basement for a huge chunk of it (I was even down there the day I went into labor, haha!) and even more proud of Kris for the awesome job he has done! I couldn't be more impressed with all the work he has put into it! To be able to say that he finished a basement is such an accomplishment! I'm very lucky to have such a handy husband :)