Basement Update #2

Saturday was a huge day for us in terms of basement accomplishments! We'd been looking forward to the stonework on the fireplace getting into place and seeing if what we picked out will turn out as great as our expectations.

Yahoo! We spent a ton of time looking at stone and figuring out what style we both liked.

We talked with a friend of ours who is a mason. His company did the stonework for the Waterpark of America. He thought we might like that stone. So, we ventured over there - telling the kids prior to this trip that we were NOT going there for the water rides. Torture. (Note: we may have looked a little suspicious walking in, bypassing the check-in desk, and standing in the entry staring at and examining the stone as if artwork and completely ignoring the water slides.) But, it was a lovely stone and we really liked it a lot. As coincidence would have it (or divine intervention) the man we contacted in Shakopee for the stone happens to be the same man that arranged all the stone ordering for the MOA job and knew exactly what percentage of each stone was ordered.

Saturday, the same friend that pointed us to the MOA job came over to help. Actually, he did most of the work. Mike was in charge of the grunt work - lifting, mixing cement, whatever our friend told him to do. He was here all day and we are so thankful for his help!

Mike spent from 4-11pm grouting/scraping the cement away. I even ended up helping with the scraping. By this time Mike's hands were absolutely raw from handling cement all day long. Somehow he even ended up with gravel embedded in his wrist. We still aren't sure how that happened.

Here's a slide show of some updates. Most people show slide shows of their kids. We show slide shows of construction work. Geeks.



The walls aren't quite as orange in the bathroom as these pictures would have you believe. And the color in Mike's office can change from blue to gray to green in a single day. Always a surprise!
All painting is done (except the kids lovely bright blue and bright orange room), Mike plans to work on the shower in the coming week. He's started putting up and trimming doors (a different style than upstairs and I love these too!) though we still have to stain everything having to do with trim and door. Carpet is rescheduled (for the 3rd time!) to be laid Sept. 25th. Wish us luck for making this deadline! Mike may just get into his office before the end of the year!