When people stop blogging for awhile.....

I usually assume they are pregnant. I would say 80% of the time I'm right too. You get pregnant and sick and tired and just don't feel like sitting up at a computer and typing. Not to mention the fact that everything else takes you longer so you don't have time to blog. And for some people, their brain shuts down and they can't even think of anything to blog......

That's not the case for me this time. You wanna know what I've been doing for the last 6 or so weeks????????

Pulling these

Installing these


Putting these in every room


Plumbing these


And figuring out this. Which was a pain in the neck. But it's done and it works, hurray!



And installing 33 of these can lights!!!


Yep, we are moving way forward on our basement. I just made the call and scheduled our inspection so we can insulate and sheetrock asap! It has been a lot of work. And we still have a lot of work to go. But it has been amazing to learn how simple the construction world is. We have learned that the rocket scientists are...... well they are building rockets. And construction isn't that hard. I'll take you briefly through what we have done so far....

Framing. We hired some boys that we know to come frame and paid them hourly. It was ridiculously cheap, and we love what they did. Over and over. We kept changing our minds and having them move walls. They got pretty sick of it. But I think we are all set now. :)

Electrical. I bought the book "Wiring 1-2-3" from Home Depot. And I learned that electrical work is scarcely more than connect the dots. I learned what the 3 wires inside that yellow plastic sheathing do, and realized it is rarely more than matching colors. (except for 3 way switches which I learned how to do too). I have wired three way and four way switches, 33 can lights, 3 smoke detectors, exhaust fans, ovens, hot tubs, washer/dryers, ceiling fans, sconce lights, speakers, cable, telephone, you name it, we probably have it in our basement. We even ran conduit under the cement. Our basement is WAY over wired, but at least we will never feel under wired! I installed stair way lights (pictured above) on a motion sensor so when you walk up the stairs they automatically turn on. And put sconce lights at the bottom of my stairs which was already sheet rocked. And no, I don't think my basement is going to catch on fire, I really do understand what I'm doing and I've asked a ton of questions from professionals. In fact, the guy at the electrical supply store told me I should become an electrician. He couldn't believe I understood what he was talking about. We even figured out how to wire single pole timers as 3-way. Pretty cool.

I have decided that construction is way better for men. My hands get nicked up all the time, and it takes me quite awhile to pull wires since I have to move the ladder every 3 joists. But I don't mind doing it once. Especially since I know how to fix things in the future.

Plumbing. We had to change things around that were already covered in cement. Big problem right? Our lowest plumbing bid was $2450. Ouch. One of Dave's students just so happened to work for the lowest bidding plumber. He told us he would come help us. I was really hesitant, but it ended up being awesome! They dug down 2.5 feet through the cement and moved the drain as well as putting in a drain for two vanity sinks and a urinal (with four boys living down there we decided, why not?) Then he started bringing the water in, but ran out of time. We couldn't seem to work it out to have him come back, so we finished the water lines our self. Yikes. I hate plumbing. But it is done now, so whatever! Dave calls it adult legos. You just click the pieces together and clamp them down. Oi. I keep saying I'm never plumbing again. Until one of my connections comes apart and we have to rip down the sheet rock and fix it. Yeah, I'm not as confident with my plumbing, but so far, so good.

Installing the fireplace was quite an ordeal. We bought this incredible expensive, high end, beautiful fireplace off of KSL for only $300. What a steal!!! Yeah right. I think we are into this fireplace $1300 now. It was missing pieces, really important pieces, like the $250 remote control. Or the $400 front. One of our kids knocked over the glass and broke it. $60 at the glass store to replace it. It didn't have any piping so the installers had to special order the piping which took awhile, and of course cost more. And then there were missing clamps for the glass. $90. For clamps? My father in law fashioned some up for us for free, thank HEAVENS! Anyway, we wanted this arched fireplace to go along with our arched theme in the house, and we will be very grateful for it.

This basement experience, although not even close to done, has been a good one for us, the least handy people on Earth. We have learned great things. But our poor upstairs hasn't been worked on hardly at all. So we have a lot of work to do to get caught up on housework. I should say "I". But I can't WAIT until this basement is done and my boys can have some more space to play and live. 3 boys in one room is slightly squishy, so I can't wait to put the older two in their new Star Wars room downstairs (see pottery barn kids)

I gotta go back to work. This post probably isn't very well wrapped up but......
THE END.
Bye