More Dominoes Falling Fast...

Welcome to our basement storage room.

This was the original view into it, from the basement family room.

Looking left, after stepping through that doorway, here's how much extra room there was in there:

Enough room for a guest room and maybe a tiny bathroom, don't you think? That's what we thought.

We searched all summer (on and off), fruitlessly, for a plumber. Finally, our hero, Mr. A, found us one. And the first domino fell.

Did you see those two white pipes sticking out of the ground? And the other one near the wall? Plumbing!

With that stubbed in, Mr. A could begin building walls. Yes, the same Mr. A who is our realtor, our church's worship leader, Papa Rooster's running mate in college and his current partner in ministry--is also a painter and master carpenter!

This shot shows the bathroom on the deep left, the storage room on the right (which will be L-shaped and entered from the same door in the first picture), and the guest room, which is in the center of the picture. That little opening on the far guest room wall will be a cupboard opening into the guest room.

From another angle, here's "before":

And "after":

And here's the new hole in our family room wall:

Guest room entrance straight ahead; bathroom on your left!

Here's the entrance to the storage room--same doorway as the first picture--which wraps on around to the left (and I will be unpacking those boxes onto shelves very soon, I hope):

And here's that same wall, from another angle...

...and Mr. A, Electrician!

We just call him Our Hero.

Believe it or not, these rooms are now almost done. The dominoes are falling so fast I haven't even been able to take pictures! The drywall went up last Friday and Saturday (and you can't really show interesting pictures of that anyway). Then it was sanded, finished, primed and painted on Monday (imagine blinding white walls). On Tuesday the tile was laid in the bathroom and on Wednesday, Mr. A finished the second coat of paint on the bathroom walls moments before the tile guy arrived (early) to do the grout.

Today the plumber will put in the toilet and sink and we'll have a working bathroom! Mr. A will put up trim and other finishing pieces. Tomorrow the carpet goes into the bedroom, and then the furniture--and then my parents arrive for the weekend.

What serendipity!

I am not sure if there will be doors yet, though. Must ask Our Hero tomorrow.

I am so excited. (Can you tell I'm excited?) Stay tuned for pictures of the finished rooms!