ORC WEEK 5: MORE TIME, PLEASE!

This is the part of this six-week challenge where I've come to the full realization that there will be no major reveal in a week. Not a complete one anyway. This has been a frustrating project in that regard because nothing is seeming to come easily. I would guess this is more typical of most projects people do than when we redid our bathroom last spring. In that case, the decisions just flowed.

Part of the problem is that my brain is taking me to the garden, not to the Internet to look, seemingly endlessly, for the right area rug (now rugs). Never before have I wished more for an interior design friend who I could hand the reins over to.

In fact, there's been basically no progress on the room since last week. I'm still in shopping/decision-making mode, which I suppose should have been doing somewhere around Week One. Choosing items that work is much harder when you're trying (not very successfully, I might add) to stick to pretty tight budget.

This is what we'll use for the desk light. Unfortunately it came with a broken switch so we're waiting for a replacement to arrive.

There have been some missteps. Cushions that I ordered for the existing wicker chairs came and they were far too small. I decided the existing curtains are not going to work. A light came with a broken switch.

The good news is that we've been able to move Mr. Much More Patient's desk back into the space so he can get back to working properly.

The biggest decision I've been struggling with is that of rugs. Although I like the sort of muted-but-warm color palette that the fixed elements have in that room, I feel like a basement needs to go to great lengths to feel warm, so I'm looking at very vibrant area rugs. You gotta love a little rudimentary Photoshop work for such things.

This rug, a vintage one I found on ebay, is my favorite. Unfortunately it was a bit more than I wanted to spend and had not been cleaned. I figured by the time I had it cleaned it would be way out of my price range.

I've been playing around with other "faux vintage" rugs that are much more affordable, but I can't decide if I should go more towards pink or orange.

I did make one rug-related decision that I'm really happy about. I got this rug for the stairs to use as a runner. So good news: I love it. Bad news, that's a big project because I'll have to pull off the existing carpet (ew) and patch and paint the stairs before that can happen. See, this is why these projects are supposed to happen in winter!

The stairs to the basement are narrow so a typical runner wouldn't work. Instead I ordered several 2x3 rugs that I'll use for the stairs. 

This room will be finished and look great at some point, but I'm just giving you the head's up, next week's big reveal may be less than revealing. Such is life in the land of real DIY.

For better or worse, I'm redoing this room as part of the one room challenge. Make sure you check out the other guest participants (who, presumably, have made better progress than I have.)

And check out previous weeks in this project in case you've missed them:

• Week 1: The plan
• Week 2: Flooring options
• Week 3: Paint for days
• Week 4: Installing the cork floor

ORC WEEK 4: EASY + BEAUTIFUL DIY FLOOR

I knew the floor would be the single biggest change in our basement renovation. The old floor was just so terrible that it absolutely could not stay, not to mention we needed a floor to not just change the look of the space, but add warmth, sound dampening and be durable.

I can't tell you how happy I am with the change our new cork floor made. But that is jumping ahead in the story because we installed this baby ourselves!

Globus Cork provided the materials for this floor so that I can share the process of selecting it and installing it with you.

Before we finalized the design, we laid out one row of tiles and took a panoramic photo to see the whole room at once. You can see we make a few changes to the planned design.

So in Week 2 (back when I was an optimistic person who wasn't completely freaking out about finishing this project on time), I walked you through the process of selecting the floor, which was no easy feat when the options are pretty much only limited by your imagination. We decided on a random stripe pattern in using Bleached and Alabaster colors, both in the nugget texture.

We installed click and lock bamboo floors in the bedrooms several years ago when we did our big renovation and I remember there was an issue with the delivery truck actually getting the flooring to our house. It came in several boxes and technically we should have had a forklift to move it. So it was a lovely surprise when the cork flooring showed up delivered by a regular carrier, possible only because it's so light.

I made a list of the order in which the stripes went that we checked off as we went so we didn't lose our place!

Globus Cork has a really thorough installation tutorial on its website which was hugely helpful but honestly, we were overthinking it. We opened the boxes and let the cork acclimate for a few days while we prepped the floor. The key thing is that the cork, which is laid used a contact adhesive (the back of the cork tiles are pre-coated and then you apply glue to the floor) needs to go on top of clean plywood or uncoated concrete. We had our tile installer friend (a good friend to have!) do a self-leveling skim coat on top of the concrete to make everything smooth and give us a nice surface to work on.

As with any floor, the hard work is in the prep, and it's important to make sure that everything is square. Using a chalkline, we mapped out the center, perpendicular lines and a starting line for our first row that was based off the centerline, not the wall (there isn't a straight wall in this house).

From there it's just a matter of rolling on the adhesive, letting it dry clear (it took about an hour with a fan blowing on it in our cool basement), and then sticking on the cork. In order to avoid stepping on the adhesive, the first few sections, each about 3 feet wide, took a bit of time. The first row is the most important, so we took a lot of time lining it up with chalkline and a square, making sure to not allow it to touch the floor until we were ready for it to stick.

Line up the inside corner of the tile first, then the long edge, followed by the short edge and lastly the freestanding corner. I applied firm pressure for a nice tight seam.

It's important to line up one corner at a time and just lightly let it touch (if you have to pull it up you still can, albeit very carefully, so long as you don't press down) and then gradually get the other corners set. Set the next tile by butting it up right next to the first tile, again one corner at a time. The nice thing about the cork tiles is that they have some give, so you can really get nice tight joints by firmly butting up to the previous tile.

Pound the tiles with a rubber mallet to seal the adhesive. We paid special attention to edges and corners.

With the first row set, we made our way across the room, checking off each row on my cheat sheet, because it would have been easy to lose our place with the random stripe pattern. When a section was done, we pounded it down with a rubber mallet. I'm not going to lie: This was the only onerous party of the process. You have to pound the cork (not roll it) to seal the adhesive, and that's a lot of pounding. Bonus: You can skip your regular arm workout.

Use a drywall T-square, a solid cutting surface (NOT your floor!) and sharp utility blades to trim the cork tiles. We cut them upside down, but I don't think it matters. Way easier than the saw you'll need with just about any other kind of floor!

There's a few other tips and tricks we learned to installing cork flooring:

• Unless your pattern requires them to be lined up, offset your seams.
• Use a drywall T-square and a sharp utility knife (change the blade often) to cut cork. 
• Take your time with the first few rows and then you can fly pretty quickly.
• A scissors or utility knife also works for cutting around odd-shaped corners or obstructions.
• Pull tiles from several boxes to account for any color variation.

If you look closely you'll see a bump where we failed to make sure the self leveler was completely smooth. 

There's one don't to share with you as well. Globus Cork is clear that the floor needs to be perfectly smooth before you lay the cork and in almost every spot it was. But there was one place where the self leveler didn't level very well and there was a bit of ridge. I meant to sand that area down, but I completely forgot about it, and now there is a raised spot visible through the cork. It's not a big deal and I doubt that anyone else will really see it, but it could have easily been avoided. So learn from me: Make sure you don't skip that step! Cork is a forgiving floor because it can handle a floor that slopes (don't try that with tile), but its flexibility also allow bumps under the tile to show.

After the floor is installed, a final coat of sealer goes over the top (the cork is already sealed, but this final coat helps seal the joints and make the cork even more durable). It was easy to apply with a foam roller but took a little longer to dry than we expected. The only problem with that was that we had to wait a little longer to show off our new floor!

I can't begin to explain the difference this floor makes in this space. But maybe I don't need to. I think the pictures speak for themselves. What you can't tell from the pictures is how much nicer it is down there. It's hard to explain, but it goes beyond just looks. It's warmer, quieter and cozier. And I really do think the stripes combined with the off-white paint on the walls and ceiling have made the room feel far more in proportion than before. Almost like it's magic. Yeah, let's go with that. It's magic. 

I'm (crazy enough to be) redoing the basement as part of the One Room Challenge. Check out the progress week by week here:

• Week 1: The plan
• Week 2: Flooring options
• Week 3: Paint for days

And make sure to check in on the hundreds of other guest participants and featured bloggers. Things are gonna get hairy from here on out!

ORC WEEK 3: CHA CHA CHANGES

Ah yes, Week 3 of the One Room Challenge. I remember this week from when I did this last year. It is when the panicking properly starts. Because right now it does not feel like I'm even remotely halfway through this basement project.

You can catch up on Week 1 and 2, but most of the work is happening on the computer. I've made a list of the items I need to purchase for this renovation and I've been working hard to check things off. That's ironic since I've mentioned on more than one occasion that this is a low-budget affair. But when you're doing a space for the first time—and that's really what this is as we just sort of stacked stuff down there before—there are a lot of things that you need to collect.

This is a pretty terrible photo, but it illustrates how we basically painted everything the same color, from the ceiling to the walls to the trim.

The biggest change in the space is also the simplest: paint. I'll never know what I was thinking when I decided to paint the walls down there raspberry and baby blue, but I'm far more in my comfort zone going with a cream color. We chose Benjamin Moore Mascarpone, which I've used for the trim and some of the walls in most of the rest of the house, for two reasons: 1. We had a lot of it left over from other projects so I didn't need to buy much, and 2. I just didn't have it in me to go through the whole "Which shade of off white should I pick?" thing. Honestly, it's a little warmer than I might have liked, and interestingly, the less expensive paint we went with for the walls, which we did have to buy, is far more yellow than the trim paint that we already had, even though they are all Benjamin Moore formulations, but it's OK.

I also changed out the door hardware from the bright, cheap gold to a more classic black. I originally decided on black accents in that space for the same reason I chose the paint color—ease—but I'm very happy with the decision. It's not just simple, not to mention black is often a less expensive finish than some others, it also works well with the space.

I chose these simple door knobs with a square rosette for the closet door and the louvered doors to the other half of the basement. (Here's an affiliate link for them.) Sidenote: Painting louvered doors is like visiting the seventh circle of hell and I don't recommend it.

And of course, my favorite bit so far is the industrial lights I made for less than half of what I could have purchased them for. It was a much easier project than I anticipated and I detailed the whole how-to here.

Next week is a big one: Floor time! I'm certain that more than anything a new floor is going to transform this space.

Make sure to check out the featured One Room Challenge participants as well as the hundreds of guest participants making huge changes to one room in their house in this crazy challenge.

ORC WEEK 2: FLOOR OPTIONS GALORE

Welcome to Week 2 of the One Room Challenge. I'm "playing along" as a guest participant in the blogging event that has people making over a room in six weeks and linking up via Calling it Home.

In Week 1 (which I just published a couple days ago) I laid out the room, the issues, the challenges and a very rough design concept. But any renovation of that room would fail if I didn't deal with the main issue in the room: the floor.

A variety of the colors available from Globus Cork that we considered for the project. Top row: Alabaster, Ocean Fog, Pisello; Second row: Slate Gray, Bleached, Sage; Third row: Cement Gray, Ocean Blue, Natural; Bottom row: Graphite, Whitewashed, Sable.

The existing floor—pink and blue sheet sheet vinyl—could be described as hideous at best. This was not something that I could just design around. And honestly it wasn't really the best kind of flooring for this space. In fact, flooring in this space has a long list of qualities it needs to have:

• Durable. This is a hard working space because we are constantly walking back and forth through that space to get to the utility side of the basement.
• Able to deal with water issues. We have two sump pumps in the basement—one on each side—that manage the rare water issues we have down there. That side of the basement has never had a real water problem other than the one time the sump pump failed, but it's a basement, so water can happen. 
• Add warmth. The basement isn't well insulated and although there is heat down there, the space is naturally cooler than the rest of the house.
• Dampen sound. Even with low ceilings, the acoustics are not the best. Couple that with the likelihood that the washer or dryer could be running in the next room, or the furnace may kick on and it's not exactly super quiet. Anything that can help dampen the sound would be good.

Vinyl (doesn't solve any other than the water issue), wood (warm but nothing else), carpeting (no way, never near a potential water issue) and tile (durable, but misses the mark on the rest of the requirements) were out. In fact there was only one kind of flooring I could come up with that actually fulfilled all the requirements: cork.

I love cork floors. Our family cottage used to have them when we were growing up and they survived soaking wet kids full of sand from the beach, wet towels left for days, several months with no heat and more. Back then cork floors were the color of cork, not unlike a bulletin board. Which is not bad, but doesn't work in every space.

But now, cork can be found in just about every color under the rainbow. I reached out to Globus Cork to work with on this project in part because they offer hundreds of color and texture combinations. The fact that their cork tiles are easy to install, meaning we could do it ourselves, was a bonus. 

Globus Cork is providing flooring for this project so that I can tell you about the process of choosing it, installing it and living with it. Of course all opinions are my own.

Globus Cork offers more than 40 colors of cork in three textures, all of which can be cut in custom patterns. You know how they say that sometimes having more options is worse than fewer? Honestly there is so much to choose from that it can be a little overwhelming, although a project gallery on the website helps spark the imagination.

The neutral options we considered (clockwise): Cement Gray, Alabaster, Bleached, Whitewashed and Natural in the middle. 

I knew I didn't want a basic solid-color floor for the basement. I felt like it would be a missed opportunity to not do something a little out of the ordinary for a space like this, so I ordered several color options to get a feel for just how bold we wanted to go. And although we played around with some of the blues and greens, I'll admit, I'm just not a good enough designer to know how to make something like that work for the long term. I think plenty of people could make a floor to die for that is very bold and exciting and even timeless, but I don't trust changing tastes enough for that.

So we quickly narrowed down the options to a more neutral palette, and one that was light in color because we need to do everything we can to make that space feel brighter and larger. Although I liked Cement Gray, it seemed like the oddball out among the neutral options we pulled, so we nixed that. And I loved Natural, but there was a warmth to it that didn't work well with the stone in the fireplace, so I pulled that out of the running as well. Then it was a decision of whether we wanted two or three colors.

I think we could have made any pattern look really nice with a combination of Alabaster, Whitewashed and Bleached, but my concern was that the floor might get too busy. So we narrowed it down to two: Alabaster, a cream color, and Bleached, which is basically bleached natural cork (the two end tiles shown above).

Here's the diagram we made showing what we plan to do with the random stripe design. Nothing like making things complicated.

As for the pattern, I thought a stripe going across the room might help the space appear a little wider than it was and, for no reason other than to do something a little different, I opted for a random stripe. The design will be about two-thirds Bleached and one-third Alabaster, with stripes of random width and placement. 

On paper is one thing, but we'll see how it looks in the space. It's liberating to be doing something a little out of the ordinary and I think it will help turn a very basic space into something a little special. 

There are so many amazing renovations happening as part of the One Room Challenge. Check out the featured participants and the guest participants (more than 200!). 

ONE ROOM CHALLENGE: A DO-IT-ALL SPACE DESIGN

I've mentioned the basement project here before, but only in an introductory fashion. Frankly, not much has happened with it, but there's one sure way to make sure it gets done: Put it on a ridiculous schedule for the world to see. Enter the One Room Challenge, which technically began last week but I got a little behind on so you're first being introduced to it today.

Last year we redid the first-floor bathroom as part of the One Room Challenge and two things came of it: I swore I'd never try to get a room finished in six weeks again, but I got a room finished. 

We are asking this room—the finished half of our full basement—to be a bit of everything. Its main function will be to serve as an office for Mr. Much More Patient, who started his own business at the beginning of the year. There will also be a sitting area that may some day become a small workout area and room for storage. It needs to be bright (did I mention it's a basement with teeny windows?) and durable because we'll be in it and walking through it to get to the business end of the basement. And it needs to be done on a budget.

The budget, actually, has budged a bit since I introduced this project. Pennies, which was the original budget, was not exactly realistic, so we've found a bit more to dedicate to it. But the plan is still to DIY everything, reuse furniture and materials wherever possible and call upon a few main features to carry the design. 

Speaking of design, the mood board above gives an idea of where the space may be headed. The overall palette is cream with black accents. The floor will be warm and cozy and still very functional and with the exception of the office furniture, will use pieces we have on hand to fill the space.

And frankly, it can only get better. Remember this before picture? Ouch. It's so painful.

To review, here's what we're dealing with: A long, skinny room  with three small glass block windows, a cold floor and a low ceiling that also houses essentially like the electrical panel and a sump pump. But it does have a beautiful fireplace so it's not devoid of character.

Can we make something of it? Stayed tuned over the next five weeks to see it come together and find out what we can do on a tight budget entirely done DIY.

And don't forget to check out all the amazing projects linked up and participating with the One Room Challenge hosted by Calling it Home. Since I got a late start on this, I'll be back with more in a couple days!

FRIDAY FINDS

It is a gorgeous day in Wisconsin. The sun is shining, the high temperature may break a record and I have completely mixed feelings about that. Don't get me wrong, I love an easy winter. But I love it during winter. There are consequences though. Last year I had Japanese beetles in my garden for the first time ever, probably caused by a mild winter and spring. Plants can handle a pretty wide range of temperature fluctuations, but extended periods of weather in the 50s in mid-February in what is supposed to be zone 5 can cause problems. And I worry about the broader implications that go beyond my garden.

As part of the basement project, we've been paring down our STUFF. I recently sold a set of dining chairs that I loved very much but needed some work that I've not had the time to get to for years. We have big dinners a couple times a year so we need chairs, but these were huge and unwieldy to store. I'm on the hunt for comfortable folding or stackable chairs at a good price to replace the set we just sold, so if time allows I'm going to head to the Restoration Hardware outlet where everything is an additional 40% off this weekend and see if they have something that might fit the bill. I was thinking about these cafe-type chairs, but only if they can be stacked.

Loi's Tudor house is for sale. What a dream this house would be if you wanted a place that was completely finished and ready to just move in and live.

Erin at Floret is running a series on garden planning this week. She approaches it from the flower farm perspective but her method can certainly be scaled back to apply to home gardeners. Her first book is coming out in a couple weeks and I'll be doing a review of it, so stay tuned.

I wouldn't say there's much that's earth-shattering in this list of ways to design a beautiful edible garden, but those oak wine barrels are phenomenal.

The latest Anthropologie catalog was shot at the Gianetti's Patina Farm. It's crazy because I saw the catalog and the setting was vaguely familiar but I didn't recognize their house at all with such different furnishings in it. I gotta say ... I like the "real" way better.

And lastly, I had intended to get this how-to post up this week but ran short on time so next week. But I still have to give you a preview because ....

I. MADE. THIS.

Can you tell I'm just a little proud of myself? Tutorial on the way, I promise. Also, that's the new basement wall and ceiling color in that photo too. Just a tad better than raspberry and baby blue, right? Remember how that looked?

Eek ... it's so bad, especially with the pink floors! All we've really done down there so far is paint and do the lights and it's already about 98% better.

If you're craving the sun, be sure to follow me on Instagram as there is certain to be a beach photo or two popping up there next week. I'm headed south for a quick jolt of Vitamin D and a little break from the daily grind. I'm more than a little excited.  Have a great weekend!

A BASEMENT BEFORE TO MAKE YOU CRINGE

I've alluded to changes and projects quite a bit here so it's well past time I fill you in on exactly what's happening. Mr. Much More Patient is starting his own business and needs an office here. So, we're making an office.

We already have a den/office type of room, but we both very much like using that room (which started as the original first-floor master bedroom) as a den and since Mr. MMP will require a fairly large desk, most of the things that make the den the cozy spot we like would have to go away. Similarly, the guest bedroom isn't really big enough for both a bed and a desk setup. So that means the office is heading underground to the finished half of the basement.

I'm certain I've written about the basement here before and I may have even written up grand plans for sprucing that space up, but for the first time things are actually happening down there.

This is the epitome of a "warts and all" before picture. The terrible red wall is my doing. But you can also see the pink vinyl floor. Behind the curtained wall is a storage are that actually works pretty well but needs some cleaning out.

Half of the basement was finished by a previous owner. Everything was clearly done as cheaply as possible. Fiberboard was used instead of drywall and furring strips were put over seams instead of taping and mudding. A cheap and exceptionally ugly pink and blue vinyl floor was glued to the concrete. The trim was just flat pine boards straight from the lumber yard. Three lights run down the middle of the room. I'm sad to say that when the current owners took over (um, that would be me), the atrocities got worse. Let's just say there were some bad paint color choices involved. In my defense, it was literally the first room I'd ever painted in my life and after years in beige apartments I was desperate for color. Hey, at least I did it in the basement and not the living room.

There is a shining star though, and that's the fireplace that extends from the one upstairs. A previous owner had the flue for it closed off so it no longer functions, but last year we removed the really ugly insert from it so at least it looks ok.

Time is of the essence with this project (and painting is underway) so I'm going into this with far less of a plan than I usually approach these projects with. And the budget is small so we're tackling the necessities and the cosmetics more than anything. Lighting upgrades, more insulation and even another heat vent (there is one that comes in the room but it's inadequate for the size of the space) would be very practical upgrades, but they are both time consuming and expensive so none of those is happening. Instead, we're working with what we have for the most part.

The fireplace is a nice focal point and the wicker chairs came with the place and I love them, but I'll need to make new cushions for them.

That starts with paint. We're painting everything—ceiling, walls, trim—the same color (Benjamin Moore Mascarpone, which is the trim color in the majority of the house and also the wall color in the living room) to both lighten it up down there and hopefully visually raise the height of the ceiling. I might have picked a different color but we had a lot of Mascarpone around so we went with that. I'll pick up new fixtures for the ceiling, hopefully ones that put out a bit more light than what's there.

This corner will be the office space. The wood box on the wall hides the electrical panel and the tall wood box to the right covers a sump pump.

The stairs are across from the wall above. Yes, I painted it blue and red. Don't judge. Actually, do judge. I deserve it.  On the far left of the photo you can see the doors that lead to the unfinished portion of the basement.

We absolutely must do something about the floor and not just because it's ugly. It is also very cold, so we need to cover it with something maybe layer area rugs on top of that. Unfortunately since it's a larger space, there is no truly inexpensive solution. We're still weighing the options for that.

I made a trip to Ikea to pick up a desk and a Besta credenza a couple weekends ago and we have plenty of other furniture for the rest of the room.

Here's a better view of the larger space. 

The lighting is just three ceiling lights, all of which will be replaced. About a year ago I got a quote of about $1,100 to add more lights to the room, so rather than do that, we'll supplement the lighting with strategically placed lamps. The bump outs on the right for the air ducts are really low. At 5 feet 2 inches tall, that's not an issue for me, but Mr. Much More Patient has to duck a little to get under them. Hopefully painting everything the same color will make that less noticeable.

I'll show you our progress as it happens. No matter what, I think it can only get better.

Do you have a finished area in your basement? If so, do you really use it?

CHRISTMAS OVER, ONTO WHAT'S NEXT

All the presents have been opened. Most of the cookies have been eaten (the ones that remain seem to have an extra dose of guilt with them). Christmas is a wrap, but it was a darn good one.

Yep. Ate all those cookies. And a whole bunch of others too.

I had the day after Christmas off from work, which was really nice. This got cleaned up, the food coma subsided and I laid the groundwork for the next project in our house. Frankly I'm shocked there are still projects to be done, but I'm grateful because it's good to have something to do in winter.

I'll go into the hows and whys in a dedicated post soon, but we're finally going to fix up the finished half of the basement. Yes, I've said this before and I've even made half-hearted attempts at it before, but this time it's really happening. And it's happening on a budget. That means that a few things that really should be done, like adding insulation and expanding the electrical, aren't going to happen both for budgetary and timing reasons. I'm relatively certain those are things we'll want to do down the road, but I've got a few ideas of how to get by in the meantime.

Flowers at the store were so expensive so I grabbed the cheapest two varieties: red carnations and mums. Throw in some  tips from the Christmas tree and it's perfect for a Christmas morning breakfast.

I spent most of my day off cleaning down there. Having gone through this process last year before we fixed up the office/back room/den upstairs, it wasn't too bad of a job, but as usual, I struggle with having too much stuff. I've started calling those giant plastic storage tubs "Satan bins" because if you turn your back on an empty one, you will find it filled with things you don't need. There are seven empty bins ready to be given away (although I'll keep a few for moving pots around in spring when I start seeds and dahlia tubers indoors).

There is a stack of books that I can't figure out the origin of, but since we're planning on adding some bookcases down there, I'm not too worried about them. We also came to the conclusion that we have one too many pieces of furniture (or perhaps just the wrong furniture) down there, so more will be moved out.

One thing is certain: There's no way this won't be a great after because the before is really bad! I can't wait to show you more of it. We might be on the last few days of 2016 but I'm ready to get on with 2017.

How was your holiday weekend?

Has anyone seen the cat?

A GREAT HOLIDAY, FOLLOWED BY THE GREAT PURGE

I'll admit I'm not a fan of Christmas on a Friday because from a regular job perspective, it's a big challenge. On the other hand, two "extra" days after the holiday were pretty darn amazing to have.

Christmas was great. Lots of good family time, great food, a Christmas Eve showing of the new "Star Wars" movie, the series finale of "Downton Abbey" and massive amounts of decluttering.

There were cookies. So many cookies. There are still many, many cookies.

I caught a photo of my brother walking around with a tape dispenser on his wrist on Christmas Eve (he was ready to wrap a gift at a moment's notice). I have one with his face in it and I plan to hang onto it for blackmailing purposes.

My sister-in-law had such beautiful wrapping this year!

"Star Wars" was fantastic. Great as a movie and great as a "Star Wars" movie.

"Downton Abbey" on my TV! YAY!

Yes, I watched all of the last season of "Downton Abbey" as it was shown on the other side of the pond. After all the issues with trying to watch "Gardener's World" and other shows, I finally just used a paid VPN (virtual private network) provider but then that got blocked too! I now use the Smart DNS service through CactusVPN, which costs $3.50 a month. We got an Apple TV system for Christmas (I'm still figuring out exactly how it works, but we're hoping it's the first step to cutting the cord on cable this year), so I was able to watch the Downton finale on the TV via Airplay, which basically beams whatever is on your computer screen to your television.

There will be no "Star Wars" or "Downton" spoilers here, but I am pretty sure you're going to like them both.

Onto the decluttering portion of the weekend. The weather was lousy so I pretty much hung out in the basement most of the weekend, finally attacking the giant pile of junk down there. And it turns out that that's exactly what most of it was: junk. It was dusty (hardy to clean regularly down there with stuff everywhere), a little dank and occasionally downright gross. I pulled out a huge pile of stuff for Goodwill, a couple items to be sold (although other items that I think I could have sold just went to Goodwill because I just didn't feel like dealing with it anymore), and six 55-gallon garbage bags of junk that were not in good enough shape for donation. SIX! We filled up the entire back of my too-big car with garbage from the basement and all of Mr. Much More Patient's station wagon with donations.

And while there is some of that amazing relief you feel when you go through such a process, mostly I'm just mad. I'm angry that for years (honestly, this probably started the moment we moved into the house and just put things in the basement "while we found a spot for them") we allowed this stuff to clutter our lives and our house. The fact that so much of it was deemed to be garbage proves that there was no need to have it in the first place.

I've come to the conclusion that those big plastic tubs are evil. They are just an excuse to store stuff you don't need to be storing. I've decided that unless one of those bins has a very specific purpose (i.e. Christmas decorations) and a permanent home on a shelf, it will not be used. It's way too easy to forget about things forever in them.

With the majority of the stuff organized or purged, we vacuumed like crazy and I steam mopped the entire floor and it is so freeing. There's a lot more work to do, but it's a very good start. And it's not even 2016 yet!

KICKSTARTING A PROJECT THAT'S BEEN A LONG TIME COMING

So last week, I signed off on Friday Finds by saying that I didn't know what I was going to do this weekend, but that it wouldn't be cleaning a fireplace. So imagine my surprise when, just 48 hours later, I was crawling around in a firebox doing just that.

A dirty old fireplace never looked so good.

Let me back up. As I've mentioned here plenty of times. I've been trying to get the finished portion of the basement cleaned up so I can fix it up enough that I actually like the space (and we might actually use it) enough to not allow it to become a dumping ground. This involved clearing out 13 years of clutter and collection. It's not fun and the process has been slow.

But I was thrilled when I sold an armoire we've not used for several years (other than to hide Christmas gifts to each in; which became ironic giving that we were both hiding them in there) Saturday morning. That cold, hard cash felt great in my hands, and every dollar I can scrape up will be very helpful for a very low-budget reno. In fact, I was so inspired, that I started posting all kinds of things on the Facebook rummage sale where I sold the armoire. Within half an hour I sold a stereo we've been hanging onto for ages for $50.

Here's the old fireplace with the insert. On the periphery you can see just a small amount of the stuff that has accumulated down there. I'm too embarrassed to show you any more. 

I also listed the fireplace insert for the basement fireplace as free for anyone with enough strong friends to get it out of my house. This cast iron thing weighed at least a couple hundred pounds and, although a mason told us they were highly valuable for both use and scrap, I just wanted this ugly thing gone. The flue for that fireplace was capped when we bought the house, so using that fireplace was never an option. It really wasn't a great hardship as hauling wood into the basement didn't sound fun.

These four guys responded to my Facebook post (more accurately, one of their wives did) and spent a long time prying that thing out of the fireplace. This is where they are spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to get it out of the cellar doors.

So Sunday morning, four big guys came to liberate this insert from our basement and reuse it in one of their houses. The deal was that they could have it for free so long as they did all the work and didn't damage our fireplace. That thing put up a fight—it must have taken them 45 minutes to get it out and another  30 minutes to figure out how to get it out of the basement—but it's gone.

Look at that pretty little arch that has been revealed.  We can take a moment here to reflect on the horrible pink and blue vinyl floors as well. Obviously those will need to be changed.

And for the first time, I saw the basement firebox unencumbered by the insert. And I was delighted to see that it has the same slight arch that the upstairs fireplace does.

Then I was in there with the shop vac sucking out all sorts of corruption. And yeah, I'm going to have to wash the surround at some point too.

At this point, the plan is to clean out the rust metal-lined firebox and paint it black, clean up the stone surround and put some candles in there for ambiance. A mantel and a few other modifications would also be nice, and I'd tie that in with planking the walls. The ceiling is very low down there—7 feet would be my guess—so that brings some challenges.

All of that is a way to say that with all the stars aligning this weekend, the basement project finally got a jumpstart that it's been sorely needing.

LOOKING AHEAD TO A SUBTERRANEAN DIY PROJECT

First, let me start by saying that even though it's the end of the August and kids all over the country are already back in school, summer is not over. Not even close. Dammit.

Now repeat that until you really believe it. Because even thinking about fall and the miserable season that comes after it puts me in a foul mood.

But deep down, I know that my gardening days are numbered for 2015 and I've started cooking up plans for what to do with myself when it's too cold out to blissfully stare into the center of a gorgeous flower.

After a year off of house projects, things WILL be done this year. It's just a matter of what things we decide to tackle. As is the way with Murphy's Law, no sooner had we all but decided that we'd redo the first-floor bathroom this winter than Mr. Much More Patient's car started having serious issues and cutting into our renovation budget. That may still happen, but in the meantime I have some DIY urges that must be satisfied. So this season-that-comes-after-fall-that-shall-not-be-named I'm going to put some serious elbow grease into fixing up the finished side of the basement. I've decided the only way to make it not continually turn into a convenient dumping location is to make it nice enough that we don't want to do that.

Step one, of course, is to clean it out. I hate doing that. I hate having stuff that doesn't have a place (and sometimes a purpose) and have to do that do-we-need-it dance. I also struggle with how to get rid of it. How do you deal with stuff overload? Donate it all? Pick through it and sell what you can? A little money would be very nice but at the same time it is a time consuming and frustrating process. For instance, I sold a $20 area rug through a local Facebook rummage group but have spent two days trying to arrange a pick up with the buyer. Is it worth it for $20?

Traditional Staircase by Raleigh Photographers Tad Davis Photography

I do have a plan, though. I know they are all the rage right now so that probably means we'll all hate them in a year, but planked walls will be happening. I've looked up a few blog tutorials and I think I can plank all the walls for about $200 in plank materials (not counting nails, caulk, etc.). The whole thing will get a coat of paint to make it light and bright down there.

Beach Style Bedroom by Traverse City General Contractors MAC Custom Homes

I think I'll pull up the ugly gray carpet on the stairs and paint them, but in the corner where I pulled up the rug, it appeared that the treads are particle board, which could complicate that plan.

In a perfect world, I'd like to use vinyl plank flooring to cover the pink and blue sheet vinyl that's down there, but this weekend I discovered that we needed about 400 square feet of flooring and even the least expensive vinyl planks add up to a pretty penny when you have that much floor to cover. So I'm looking into options and toying with the idea of painting it.

Contemporary Hall by Santa Monica Architects & Building Designers White Picket Fence, Inc

Since there's a "stuff" problem down there, storage also needs to happen. There is an awkward corner with a sump pump and the electrical box, both of which have been half covered up by a previous owner. I think that might be a good area to just build out with semi-built-in units as both a way to incorporate those necessities into the design and add storage.

Beach Style Hall by New York Architects & Building Designers Wettling Architects

A few other things will also happen including some lighting improvements (changing out the ceiling lights and maybe springing for an electrician to  put some sconces around the room) and removing the fireplace insert. The flue has been closed off so there's no reason for the insert which was once used to heat the room. I'd rather have an empty firebox with candles in it or whatever than the big, hulking insert.

But it all starts with a clean slate and I really want to know what you all do to deal with your stuff. Let me know!