Basement Surprises

 The kids and I decided that we would really surprise Marty when he returned from Seattle by cleaning the basement, taking all of our storage stuff from the rec room and putting it where it belongs, setting up the furniture and just making it into what it was designed to be - livable.  I never thought this day would come and even though it was promised to be done the week

previous, it was finished the day Marty flew to Seattle.  The kids and I spent the ENTIRE weekend (minus the time we baked Christmas cookies) working downstairs.  It was a lot of work but we all felt very accomplished once we were finished.  Both kids had such great attitudes throughout the project.

This was the state of the rec room.  Basically a storage place for all of our stuff. 

Everything was covered in about 6 inches of construction dust.  Fun!!

And when Benjamin woke up Monday morning the first thing he said was "I really like our new basement"
These are all photos of the basement in process:

Guest room/half tiled

For a few days the laundry room was connected to the heater room (where I dump the water from the dryer) by a few planks set on top of tool cases.  It was fine to walk across the planks empty handed but once I had a full laundry basket or water collection drawer it was a bit tricky. 

I took a bunch of photos of the basement still in chaos an unfinished the day Marty left and kept sending him these photos throughout his trip complaining that the basement still wasn't finished.  Boy was he surprised to come home and see this:

After their hard work I promised them a trip to their new favorite burger restaurant in town.  Thankfully they have a couple different veggie burger options for Josie.  It was nearly 3PM on Sunday when we had finished our weekend project and we hadn't eaten anything since breakfast around 8AM.  We were starving and the burgers tasted so good.