Thursday, January 27, 2011

Basement Boogie: Behind schedule

Wednesdays are usually our nose-to-the-grindstone night. We work all night and get some dinner delivered and make serious in-roads into this basement rebuilding project.

Last night was supposed to be the night we finished (ok, and started) wiring so that the electrical inspector could come by today and the building inspector could come tomorrow and we'd be drywalling this weekend.

We were thwarted:

  • We had forgot single gang outlet boxes, so I ran to Ace.
  • I got the wrong kind of box, so Hubs made a mad dash to Ace before they closed. (Des Moines, if you open a 24 hour hardware store, I promise to be a loyal customer.)
  • Niles, the new cat who has eaten raw pork, a tube of cat laxatives, salmon skin, wasabi and other trash (we aren't bad cat parents, we're just still learning how to cat-proof EVERYTHING. This guy is worse than a goat.), got into a bowl of leftover Christmas candy we had on the kitchen counter. Which included three mini chocolates. Which we knew was poisonous to dogs and quickly confirmed via Google that the same could apply to cats.

    Hubs returned to the basement while I called the local 24-hour vet, who promptly laughed at me and referred me to the ASPCA poison hotline since she had no experience with cats eating chocolate. The vet on that line said she'd never dealt with cats eating chocolate either. Niles is a true pioneer in his field.

    And don't worry, he's going to be fine. We're watching his eating and (ahem) de-eating habits for the next few days, but both vets said that the small amount of chocolate he consumed would likely just cause some tummy troubles for a day or two and nothing serious.
  • When I got back to the basement, we discovered that the Romex cables we had cut nicked the actual wire and left it exposed (hello, fire risk!). So, we needed to re-wire about half of the work we had managed to get done. 
  • It was 11:30, Fraiser was on and we were tired.

We stopped.

This puts us a few days behind schedule, but we still have plenty we can do this weekend, including build shelves for a recess that has no electrical behind it, frame out the pantry we're creating in the storage room, shop for curtains, order floors, put railings on the stairs and NOT schedule a radon fan installation. Because our current level is perfectly safe! $1,500 - I'm so glad we aren't going our separate ways.

Thanks for reading this Negative Nancy post. To reward you for your loyalty - I'd like to treat you to this wobbly and motion-sickness inducing video tour of the basement (taken sometime last week, before framing).


Basement "during" tour

3 comments:

  1. Great tour but would have liked to hear comments on the uses of the rooms.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, anon! The first room you see as the camera turns left is the laundry/work room. On the right is what we call the fooseball room because (duh) it has a fooseball table. It will also have a little sitting area. Once we walk through the narrow door way, we're in the fireplace room, where we'll have a couch and TV by the fireplace and bar on the opposite end.

    I'll be sure to be more chatty in future videos :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Try putting something heavy, like a brick or patio paver, in the bottom of your trash can. This should keep the cat from being able to tip it over. I saw the British(?) dog trainer lady (Victoria?) do this on tv.

    ReplyDelete

 
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