Milestones are something when you achieve them. I think back to the beginning of my basement renovation adventure. I started this just after Christmas of 2019. At the beginning, I was only planning on replacing the carpet with new wood laminate flooring. On closer examination I decided to pull out the old 1960’s wood paneling. And so it began.

Yesterday, August 9, 2020 was my official completion data of basement reno phase 1. So, I’ll call it eight months, plus or minus a bit.

As I started peeling the layers back on the reno, I discovered many things that needed to get done. If I didn’t do them at the time, I think I would have regretted it. I could picture myself sitting down there thinking, gosh I wonder what’s under those walls.

Here’s the highlights of the basement project:

• Discovered there was no insulation on the outside basement walls. I was able to insulate and get the vapor barrier up.
• The Electrical Panel had exceeded capacity in my opinion. The electrician agreed. I had him replace the small panel with a new larger panel. I then put a whole house surge protector in there. Each breaker now serves one circuit; no double taps in place. This really added peace of mind for me.
• Wet and dry rotted wood discovered. I removed a closet near the garage entrance. This revealed rotting wood in the framing. As I dug deeper, I discovered water would flow in directly off of the deck above. More peeling revealed black mold. This made the decision for me to pull out all of the walls and ceiling. Good that I did. I was able to clean the mold, then rip out and replace some important framing. I also had to take the siding off the house up on the deck so I could repair from that side.
• I discovered a water cutoff valve near the garage. This had been drywalled over. I’ve installed an access panel over it now.
• I discovered the clean out piping for the septic. This had also been walled in. It’s now exposed and painted. I haven’t decide yet what to do over that. Maybe nothing.
• I discovered the drain for the washer, which is in the bathroom, had been hidden by a built in desk in the great room. I added a wall that now puts that drain in the bathroom next to the washer. When I do the bathroom reno, this will be revealed and used properly.
• I removed two sections of wall to vastly open up the great room. But, prior to removing these load bearing walls, I had to install a 20′ 2 x 12 LVL. I glued and screwed that to the existing center beam to provide additional load bearing support. This allowed me to remove the walls. Ethan, my son, helped with this part.
• I had to have the gas line to the stove re-run. For some reason this had about 15 extra feet looping over near the wood stove. Yikes.
• I framed in the HVAC and other utility conduits down the center line of the house.
• Drywalling was sub’d out. I decided to let a pro do that part and he did great. I painted this up pretty quickly with an air sprayer. I remember doing the color first in a light blue. When I came down the next day I felt like I just walked into a giant bathroom. So, I changed it.
• Then the flooring went in. Recall this is what I wanted to actually do in the beginning. Eight months later here we are.

I’m very proud of the work I did. I didn’t know how to do all of it. I asked a lot of questions and studied a lot of content on the internet. I figured someone probably made a video. YouTube is a great resource for the How-To videos. Perhaps they should just take political videos off of there.

I go down there and just feel joy and blessings. I thank God for all of the lessons I experienced along the way. I hope I learned them so I don’t have to repeat them.

Here’s a photo montage of the old to the new.