Mario Wall Decals

We FINALLY got the rest of our Mario decals up in the basement!  It looks amazing, and we had a great time deciding how to arrange them.

 

 

 

Gotta have a pipe coming out the window.

Kylen's idea to make the center block higher so it looks like Mario is hitting it.

I wanted a pipe from the ceiling, and Kylen thought of the Goombas.

 

Greg thought it would be neat to surround the mushroom with bricks.

Why We Picked Blue:

We have lots more decals to put up.  This is a start!

TV and Arcade Half Cabinet

This is Greg and Kylen trying out the new tv and the arcade cabinet Greg made.  As you can see, there was still a lot of cabinet construction going on!

Cabinets

Our basement resembles a furniture factory!

 

 



Carpet

Greg and Kylen spent many hours over several days scraping primer/texture/paint off the entire floor to ensure the carpet would stick when glued down.  Normally it wouldn't matter with regular carpet and padding, but we decided on commercial carpet without padding.  We wanted the floor to be hard enough to bounce balls.  After most of the scraping was done, we were told it wasn't necessary.  Oh well.  The boys got a good workout!

Here the upper "less white" portion had already been scraped while the lower area hadn't.

The carpet people came two days in a row, only staying 2 or 3 hours each time.  The first day they added cement in a spot where the floor was too low and left it to dry overnight.  The second day they installed the carpet.  We were pleased with how well it matched our paint color!



Greg's been installing outlets.  Crazy how many of them are required by law!

 

 

The boys were SOOO excited about being able to play hockey again!  They had their first game that evening on the same day it was installed.

  

 

Next step: cabinets and trim!

Painting

What's happening behind the mysterious wall of plastic this time?

 

 

BLUE!!!  Wait.  Blue??  Huh?  Why blue?

 

You'll see.

Sanding, Priming, and Texturing

Stairs, handrail, and switchplate areas were covered.  The fumes were noxious!  They needed me to come down and clarify instructions in an area.  I was told we needed to be quick, or I'd get asphyxiated.  Yikes!  The dude spraying looked like a toxic waste worker decked out in his plastic suit and gas mask.  Kylen and I stayed in a bedroom with the door shut, me holding a sheet over my mouth and nose.  I could still smell it.

 

Rough spots made smooth with a sander and texture sprayed on for the bumpy look.

Next step: painting.

Mudding and Taping

Smoothing the seams with "mud" and rounding the edges with metal and tape.

Sheetrock Completed

What's happening down there?

Stepping into a whole new world . . .

 

I don't think I've ever seen Greg so shocked.  He spent about 20 minutes walking around muttering, "Oh wow . . . Oh wow . . ."

 

That's our air hockey/pool table under plastic.  Kinda hard to move, so they worked around it.  The ceiling and walls were finished in probably 6 hours.

 

We got the thicker stuff, hoping it will stand up to rough play.

The dark circle is where a light will be installed in the ceiling.

Future switch plate.

Waiting for the next phase: mudding and taping.

Delivering Drywall

I think huge vehicles are fascinating.  This one has a crane-like arm, and you can see one of its braces for stabilization while the crane is being operated.  There's a guy working the controls.  The arm was able to extend well beyond what you see here, along the side of the house.  They then carried the sheets one by one and left them next to our basement window, which had been removed.

There it sits waiting at the top of our window well.

They used that piece of wood like a ramp to slide sheets down, carted them around the basement, and left them in neat stacks, ready for the two-man machine that came a few days later.

For the Last 12 Years . . .



. . . we've had an unfinished basement.  It's served us well, but we felt the Lord telling us to finish it.