My blogging silence has covered a significant phase in the ongoing development of our new house. We always intended to remodel our basement, and once Linda got her room sorted, then playrooms for the boys was next on the agenda.
It took a while to get Ron working, and we started to get worried that it wouldn't be ready for Christmas. But the week after Thanksgiving work began - and seemed to progress really slowly. By mid-December, we'd chosen colours for the walls, and arranged for the carpet to be installed, but were getting concerned about fitting in the paint work before the carpets arrived. With one week to go, Ron and his team finished the work, and to help us get the decorating complete, Ron painted the whole room with primer, ready for us to add the colour to the walls. Ron spent all day Saturday priming, I spent all day Sunday and most of Monday evening painting, ready for the carpets to be fitted on Tuesday.
Some photos here.
Being the last week before Christmas, my boss took us all out for lunch on Tuesday, so I was in the Big Fish restaurant at Market Fair when Linda called me in a panic - "There's water coming out from behind the wall !" To cut a long story, when finishing the trim on Friday, Ron had nailed through a radiator pipe, and by Tuesday the mess was coming out of the wall. Ron was called back, carpets were cancelled, the wall was ripped down, and Linda insisted that Ron was not going home until all the paintwork I'd spent 18 hours doing on Sunday was made good. It was a shame that the wall didn't look quite as good as when it was first finished, but at least we could get moved in.
Christmas with the Huggins was great fun, and having the basement finished and ready was a great part of it. With our large TV, newly covered sofas, all Tom's new storage shelves, the table football that Linda bought me for Christmas, we were able to spend great moments playing and watching movies.
After Christmas I was able to fit the Ikea furniture I'd bought for my desk, and we carried on making the basement more finished, hanging pictures on the wall and moving in more personal knick-knacks. So last night, when we were sitting watching 'Surface', I was slightly disturbed by the vague hissing sound I could hear. Linda insisted it was the washing machine, but when I got up to check, I knew instantly we had a problem - partly because the noise seemed to be coming from behind the wall - and partly because I was standing in a puddle of water on the carpet.
Ron came to the rescue, coming straight over to check it out, and arranging to come back next day and fix it all. But Linda and I were so depressed, not least because after the first incident, the noise coming from behind the picture hook shouted at me that I had been stupid not to be more careful.
Today Ron took down the whole wall, found out that the hole had been caused by his nailgun, not my picture hook, and replaced the whole wood panel with sheet rock (that's plasterboard to you, mate). We came to an arrangement on payment, but now we're desperately worried that the carpet won't dry out properly and will need to be replaced. And we've got more painting to do.
