Winter projects

We are finally getting around to finishing off a portion of the basement for an entertainment/office area. When the TV moves downstairs we will actually have a dining room! That means no more entertaining around the kitchen island anymore,. . . . . . . once we find a dining room table.

I am not sure how Izzy is going to deal with the idea since the couch in the dining room is her playground. Every morning she dives amongst the pillows, begs us to play with her feather toy under the blanket on the corner of the couch and spends most of her mid-morning time sleeping on the couch. I guess she is just going to have to find another place to play and sleep. In the mean time the downstairs isn't done yet so we don't have to face that issue right now.

We are going to put in a radiant floor downstairs for heat. It is about 52 degrees down there this morning. That's a bit chilly for my blood. Brad has already laid the warm-board subfloor and we are going to install solar hot water panel on the roof to heat the water that will circulate in through the tubing in the floor.

At this stage of the game we have gotten the insulation up, the electrical wired in and are almost ready for the dry wall. I am very sensitive so everything has to be healthy products i.e. no formaldehyde or VOC's. We are going to lay an bamboo engineered flooring on top of the warm board (floating floor). Now-a-days these kinds of products are much easier to find.

Brad is going to spray the ceiling black today to make it less noticeable until we put up some kind of a drop ceiling. We don't want to totally close the ceiling up because the first floor is exposed and we are thinking we might put radiant tubing in so that the first floor is also heated.

Living with an engineer means that I am not really involved with this project. Every step is planned, researched, considered and reconsidered before proceeding. As you may already know I have a completely different style. So I go down once in a while to check on the progress or go to Home Depot to pick up supplies and other than that I stay where it's warm by the fire often with a 7 lb fur ball on my lap.