We have done several rounds of renovation on our urban townhouse, but none of them resulted in a proper casual family room. We also have had a minor but persistent water problem in our basement forever. The basement has been an obvious target to add some comfortable space to the house, but between the water, mildew and (barely) six foot ceiling we have always hesitated to do anything with it. With the three kids getting older, bigger and wanting more play space we decided to take the plunge and finish the basement. In addition to the family room, we hope to get some drier and cleaner storage space (though less of it) and a downstairs laundry area, freeing up the upstairs laundry to be a linen closet. After normal (for Old Town) permitting delays, work on the project started this week. The photo below shows the 'before' view of the basement and a couple of views of progress as of the end of the week. The before photo, is not REALLY before - it is after several weeks of Cath's hard work moving stuff out of the basement into off site storage. This week saw several days of demolition getting the old cabinets out, then digging. And jack hammering. The jack hammering was clearly audible in the attic, three floors up from the basement. The digging is expected to go on for EIGHT WEEKS, so we can go from a six foot ceiling to a standard eight foot ceiling. Our explorer cat Noelle has already investigated the new dirt piles and decided they make a fine place to sit.
Via iPad