Posts Tagged ‘storage room’
Construction Complete
We are pleased and excited to have accomplished changes to the basement of our house that we have envisioned since we first arrived. I talked frequently with family and friends about the idea of ripping out the corner entertainment center and building a larger storage room with a door, fishing for insight on what might be involved and whether it was something I could do myself. Then our window upstairs fractured.
That was the catalyst that initiated my search for someone in our vicinity who could do home construction projects. The job to replace the window was such a minor project that it wasn’t all that attractive to a builder, but when I threw in the possibility of also building a storage room downstairs, I found someone to take the bait. It was a perfect match.
Dodge Construction is one semi-retired Randy Dodge, who lives nearby and has built many homes. I was pointed to Randy by the local Andersen Window dealer, who gave the builder a stellar recommendation —believable because Randy built the dealer’s house. On top of having a career’s worth of skills, Randy happens to be a great guy. We agreed on a verbal definition of the project and locked in the deal with a handshake. Logic would dictate that is not a safe way to do business, but my instincts indicated there was little risk in this case.
Randy and his frequent accomplice, Isaac, knocked out the project with relative ease, repeatedly revealing tools and skills that made me exceedingly grateful to have not tried to do this myself. Plus, they designed on the fly, leading to improvements and enhancements that were well beyond my ability to conceive.
While we had them here, we asked if they might finish two rough openings that remained to our sunroom, where we had pulled out windows when we first moved in.
Randy took one look at that and suggested we consider a Formica surface across the bottom. He said he would look for something that might work. I was shocked to see that he brought us a section of counter top that was amazingly similar to our kitchen granite counters, relying solely on his memory. The finished product looks fabulous.
So, we have a new window, newly finished pass-through openings to the sunroom, and a completely finished storage room of built-in shelves in the basement. It is time to begin cleaning up sawdust, sheetrock dust, and putting things back into storage. This time, on shelves!
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Threatening Weather
I was just getting ready to whine about the threatening winter storm headed our way, and then I noticed that they had moved our county from “storm warning” to “storm watch.” It isn’t a big difference, but it offers that glimmer of hope to me if forecasters think the highest snow totals might stay north of our location and spare us the worst. The storm they are predicting sounds a lot like the nasty blast we received last May, which did so much damage to our trees from the weight of the wet snow. This one appears to hold a similar threat.
This late-season big snow event is frustrating for us because we were getting very close to turning the corner of having the paddocks start to dry out. While snow accumulations are melting, it is a sure thing that the ground in the paddocks is getting wetter every day. Eventually, when the majority of snow has melted, it gets to a point where there is more water going out than coming in, and then the long, slow process of drying can begin. I’d say yesterday just might have been that point, which is moot now, with new accumulations on the way.
Happily, the project in our basement to build a storage room will go on regardless the conditions outdoors. Yesterday, they installed a ceiling in the room and started building the shelves. Our builder wasn’t able to find trim that would match what already exists in the basement, so we were brainstorming options. He told me it would be possible to steal some of the existing baseboard to use around the door so it will match the other doors downstairs, and then buy new baseboard trim to replace what we stole.
His comments about stealing trim got me thinking about what was on that angled wall of the entertainment center I tore out. They had used the same trim around the cutouts for the television and speakers. Good thing I saved everything. I had forgotten all about it due to having stashed it in the shop garage so long ago. I retrieved enough that he will be able to make it work.
Contemplating both the stormy weather and our new storage room together got me thinking, this room will turn out to be a pretty good storm shelter when it’s done. That’s something that is good to have, but which you don’t ever want to need.
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Making Room
When the weather is nasty cold outside, and hours of daylight are short, one way to deal with it is to work on indoor projects. We have a project waiting for us in our basement that is finally seeing some progress. Interestingly, that progress came as a result of the fracturing of the triangular window beside our stone chimney.
In order to raise the level of interest for a builder to travel to our home to replace the broken window, we tossed in the construction of a storage room in our basement as added incentive. It worked. The replacement window is now on order and when it comes, the builder expects to be available to work on creating a walk-in storage room with built-in shelves in the space where the entertainment center once was.
When we moved in, I did some initial demolition in that corner, taking out the shelving to open up the angled space as much as possible for temporary storage. The only parts left were studs with drywall attached to them. Cyndie masterfully stowed a roomful of stuff into the small space of that corner and then hung curtains across the front to cover the cut-out spaces once filled by a television and speakers.
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In preparation of the builder taking down the studs and putting up new walls to make a more functional storage space, I pulled off the drywall and removed all the screws from the studs. Friday night, Cyndie and I removed all the stuff that was stacked behind that wall and piled it up around the basement. It is a real optical illusion of space to see that little corner empty, but the contents now appearing to consume the entire rest of the room.
We need to rearrange things now to create a clear working space for the builder, with a path for him to bring in materials, and then we will be ready when that window shows up and our project reaches the top in his queue of work.
That done, I guess it’s time to go back outside and play in the snow! How nasty can it really be out there?
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Relative Something 