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On Tuesday, the plasma TV arrived. By ordering it over the Internet, I got a really good price, probably saving a couple hundred dollars because of the discount price, free shipping and no sales tax. The fact that Best Buy doesn’t carry the 46″ model that I wanted made it a no brainer. The shipper called to let me know the time frame he would deliver it so that was fantastic. Set up was easy since I placed it on a TV stand. I bought some HDMI cables from Monoprice. They were only a few dollars, an order of magnitude less than what you would have to pay for Monster cable and the like, and just as good. While there’s still quite a bit of unpacking to do, now that the TV is set up, it really is starting to feel like my man cave. Okay, more like me and my kids’ cave. I’m not so deluded to think that I have any control here.
With the basement remodel virtually complete, we began the move in. Wednesday evening, we had a neighbor kid help me bring the two sofas from the living room down into the basement. The love seat was a tight fit which meant that the larger sofa would be nearly impossible to get down there. After one abortive attempt we took a different route and were able to squeeze it through one doorway. We had to remove the hand rail from the basement stairway. This was no easy task either as one screw got stripped and another just would not come out. Brute force worked but we’ll ask the remodelers to reinstall it for the final inspection. The large sofa also got a pretty good rip in it when the back snagged onto the door frame. I taped it over but we’ll need to get it repaired some day. Of course, I also dropped the love seat on my right foot. I am now really hobbling. I may be taking ibuprofen for the remainder of my days.
On Thursday Karen had the Pod delivered
and in the afternoon, she and two neighbor kids she hired unloaded everything that we had stored in it. The boxes and furniture filled a good portion of the basement.
I spent most of the weekend unpacking and setting up the basement. Things are moving along. We expect the new living room sofas to arrive early this week and the flat panel TV should be delivered by Tuesday.
This past week I was reading the book Lean Thinking by Jones and Womack. In it they described a company, Wiremold, that has successfully adopted lean manufacturing techniques. It so happens that one of the products that Wiremold makes hide cords and cables for home theaters. Since I wanted to hide and protect the cables for the speaker system I was setting up in the basement, I went to Home Depot to purchase some channels and couplings. The CordMate Cord Channel was easy to cut with a hacksaw and all the speaker cable easily fit. It took a little pressure to snap them shut but it all worked fine. The adhesive backing made application to the wall very easy and the ivory color matched well with the color of the walls.
I also bought a Wiremold Corduct Overfloor Cord Protector for the cable cord in the bedroom. This should help prevent the kids from tripping over the cord and hurting themselves.
Today the electrical work in the house was completed. The electrician came and installed the sconces in the basement. Thanks to Karen’s brother Eric’s suggestion, he took the sconces that we had in the living room and installed them in the basement. They were new sconces that were UL-listed so he could install them and they would pass inspection. He placed two of the sconces in the living area and one in the landing at the top of the basement stairs.
We’ll use the old sconces for the living room. They were the original scones in the living room and match the light fixture in the dining room.
The electrician also rewired our garage and installed security lights by the garage door and by our back door.
Finally, a carpenter came to install the knobs on the bedroom closet doors and the drawers of the bathroom vanity.
The electrical inspection is scheduled for this Wednesday and the final inspection will take place later in the week.
Friday evening we all went to Ikea for dinner and then purchased furniture for our basement. We ended up filling three carts and took advantage of Ikea’s home delivery. To our delight, Ikea said that they could deliver the following day. The delivery truck arrived Saturday morning before 10 am. The crew not only delivered the boxes to the house but delivered them to the rooms where they would be constructed, the basement living area and the first floor den.
We spent the rest of the weekend constructing the furniture. My hands are sore and swollen. We finished all the construction Sunday evening. Karen’s brother Eric came over late Sunday afternoon to help us mount on bookshelf on the wall, drill a hole in the back of the TV stand and anchor all the bookshelves to the walls. He is an amazing wood worker.
We have a lot of cardboard to recycle.
The Ikea furniture is really well designed and engineered for easy construction. The particle board and the cardboard backings are pretty flimsy though so hopefully with suitable care and use, we’ll try to get long service from the furniture. Given the price and our needs, we’re very satisfied with how it all turned out.
Stephen Donnelly Company came today to complete the stucco work. They applied the final dash coat. They did the original dashing and had our color on file. The dash coat will darken as it dries and where it has dried it already matches very well with the rest of the house. They did a great job.
John Mohler of Mohler Chimney Repair repaired the stone work on the two corners of the house. They had repaired our chimney a few years back and did a beautiful job with the stone work on the chimney.
This past weekend we went to John’s Antiques in St Paul where we got brackets to mount the two sconces and the ceiling light fixture for the bedroom.
We should have no problem now wiring and mounting these fixtures ourselves. Karen had brought these fixtures to John’s a while back to have them rewired for our basement remodel. We also purchased the ceiling fixture that hangs in the small hallway to the entry ways to the mechanical room, bathroom and bedroom.
John said this light used to hang in his grandmother’s house.
Today no work was done on the basement.
Earl came today to undercut the doors to clear the carpeting.
He also installed the shelf above the toilet and a towel rack by the bathtub.
The electrician will not install the sconces and bedroom light fixture. Since they are both original from our house, they don’t have UL labels and so the electrician will not install them. The bedroom fixture also is designed to be installed on a threaded rod so this will need to be modified. The wall sconces don’t have any mounting brackets to them and will need to be retrofitted with new brackets. They can be installed after the final inspection.
The bedroom closet also needs a shelf and a clothes rack. The bedroom window will need a curtain. We’ll be installing all of those. Some touch-up painting needs to be done done, the basement will get a professional cleaning and the final inspection needs to be performed. There might be a couple of other minor things that need to be done.
Today the carpeting was installed into the basement living area, the bedroom, the stairs and landing.
There is not much work that needs to be done. We should be able to start moving into the basement this weekend.
The bathroom was finished today. All of the plumbing fixtures were installed and the water was connected.
I believe all that remains is to finish installing the light fixtures and laying the carpet. Perhaps the work will be completed by the end of this week.
