We have been resting on our laurels regarding the basement. Almost all the work was finished in August except for installing carpet on the stairs. I had planned on hiring an experienced carpet installer do this because the cost of having someone else do it was about the same as the cost of the tools, and they would do a better job than I would. After contacting a couple installers and discovering that a job that small gets ignored, and the holidays were coming, I decided to do it myself on Halloween.

The day after Thanksgiving last year I started the basement remodel. Now, one year later, I summarize.

All in all, it took longer and cost more than I expected.

It took longer:

Without a lot of construction experience (a little bit of construction experience a long time ago.) I expected to complete the entire process in 6 months. It really took 9 months. The last three months I was waiting for carpet layers that never called, so the job was effectively done. The portions of the job that really took longer than I expected were (1) the electrical work, (2) hanging the drywall, and (3) mudding and taping the drywall. I expected the electrical to take me a week to do, and it ended up taking a month. The drywall I expected to take about two weeks all in and it took three months. Part of this was a lack of time in the evening and on weekends, but a lot of it was me slowly learning how to do the various jobs.

Apparently drywall professionals can hang, mud and tape the 3200 square feet of drywall I did in about a week. They do it with a fairly large crew of people. It took me three months with just help from your usual narrator and Uncle B from time to time. However, it cost about $2000 instead of over $9000. I am not sure what the electrical would have cost me to contract out, but I know I saved a lot.

It cost more:

I estimated the total remodel to this point would cost me $12,500. The actual cost was $18,938.93. with about $400 more to really get it to where I thought I would be at $12,500.(New florescent lights in the laundry room need to be purchased and installed.) I could collect receipts and determine exactly where I missed the estimate, but that would take more time than I really want to spend on this.

I did not budget for the garbage. Renting a truck and paying for dumping the basement garbage (between 3-4 tons of debris) ended up costing $751.96. I did not budget for that at all. Generally, costs for materials turned out to have been going up through the remodel process. The huge run up in housing costs and remodeling made it impossible for me to find help and cost me more in copper and other materials. With the housing market going down, I imagine my materials would cost a bit less today.

In hindsight:

I wish I would have purchased an pneumatic nail gun set first thing. A neighbor let me borrow theirs for the finish work, and it would have been nice to have used a larger one for the framing. Ultimately, I would have liked to have hired out the drywall entirely. However, you can see from above that I saved an awful lot doing it myself. It was probably worth it to do it myself, but I have wondered sometimes.

I also would have installed baseboard electric heaters in the back bedrooms. The forced air system doesn’t seem to get them as warm as we would like. The family room has the gas fireplace to warm it up. (It is fabulous!)

An average basement remodel cost $53,359 in the Western United States in 2005. Ours cost $18,938.93. I believe our basement remodel was better than average, but for comparison purposes, it looks like we saved $34,420.07.

That is a nice extra wage for 2007! Would I do something like this again? You bet! Relaxing in front of the gas fireplace makes it all worth it.

A hike to Ollalie Lake Pratt Lake best described as “character building.” This hike’s photos were taken with a disposable camera and are pretty dark and grainy; see photos of Pratt lake from somebody else’s much nicer hike here.

We planned to leave at 3:00 p.m. Traffic and slow packing boys thwarted that effort, so we left the city at 4:00 and arrived at the trailhead at about 5:00. In the Pacific Northwest that means it is dark, and with cloud cover – really dark. We turned on our headlamps and started hiking. Our group was five boys (the oldest, age 13; the youngest, barely 12), and four adults. (I was still the oldest for this trip; I don’t know how young the youngest was.) We hiked and hiked and hiked. Ollalie Lake is at about 3500 feet, the trail head is at about 2500 feet. We realized we missed the turn to Ollalie Lake when we reached the saddle between two mountains and the trail started to go downhill.

We thought Pratt Lake would be a better choice at that point and continued on. Our four mile hike in the dark turned into a six mile hike. On the way to Pratt Lake the trail began to be wet — really wet — bog wet — running water wet. We reached the lake, it was high — really high. There wasn’t room for our five tents; we could only set up four. The ground was mushy but at least it wasn’t muddy. We cooked hot meals and got ready to sleep. It was now 11:08 p.m. The ground sloped and we tended to roll into each other in the tents. We were soaked from sweat on the inside of our coats.

At least it wasn’t raining!

About 3:00 a.m. it started to rain. We did not care; we slept. (Well, I was able to sleep. Apparently two of the other, younger, adults couldn’t.) We woke up about 9:00 a.m. and then cooked hot breakfast, broke camp and started to hike out. We left camp about 10:45 a.m. It rained, and rained, and rained. We didn’t care; we knew that if we kept going, we would make it to cars, heat, and home. We reached the trailhead at about 2:00 p.m.

The great thing about this trip was that everybody was prepared for rain and cold. Even with the missed trail we were able to successfully complete a longer than expected hike, camp overnight in adverse conditions, and everybody was safe the entire time. We had the equipment and attitudes we needed. Sometimes trips are more character building than fun. This hike and campout will make us all appreciate the trips next summer when we will be able to see the scenery and enjoy the weather.

This year’s Halloween was very mellow. As usual, the first frost took place about a week before, making for lovely, chilly morning walks through the leaves with Thing Two. The Trunk or Treat party we attend was held the weekend prior to Halloween so we could hand out candy at home on the holiday.

Thing One had a little difficulty choosing a costume this year; the stores were full of pirate costumes and very little else. It seemed like piracy would be our only option until we found a Viking costume. And sure, Thing Two looks cute and cuddly, but the venom of a blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena lunulata) can kill an adult human in minutes. Even so, it’s hard to decide which is scarier: Thing Two’s costume, or the fact that his mommy is enough of a fish nerd to make this connection. Thing Two was not very cooperative for pictures, but there are a couple more of him in his costume in the Gimlet Gallery.

The Gimlet spent Halloween finishing the last major task of our remodelling project: carpeting the staircase. He’ll be posting a project wrapup soon (hint, hint) so for now we’ll just say that the hours of hammering and staple gun noises lent a poltergeist effect to our home for the evening.

Thanks to recent dental work still in progress, I’ve been saved from eating too much candy, but I thoroughly enjoyed this little limited-edition Halloween treat from Valancourt Books. Like the tiny goodies Thing One brought home, this “fun size” Gothic short story was cute and sweet; just the right amount of skeletons and witches to finish up our quiet holiday.

The Things have always been happy to listen to whatever music happens to be playing around the house or in the car, but when Thing Two received You Are My Little Bird as a gift, we were thrilled to be introduced to this CD of children’s music that the entire family can enjoy.

You Are My Little Bird is not Elizabeth Mitchell’s first album, but it is her first to be released on the Smithsonian Folkways label. Selections range from classic American favorites to international children’s songs to covers parents will appreciate (my favorite is the Velvet Underground track). The accompaniment is minimal (guitar, banjo, rhythm sticks) and the arrangements are pure and simple: a mother, father, and children having fun making music together.

Thing Two’s favorite is the Woody Guthrie track for which this blog post is named, but he also tries to sing along with the gentle Japanese “Zousan” (little elephant). This brings up my one nitpicky complaint: I was disappointed that the CD booklet didn’t include the lyrics to the non-English language songs, but since then have found the lyrics on Elizabeth Mitchell’s web site.

You Are My Little Bird is a lovely and lively collection which has become one of our family’s favorites.

• Visit Elizabeth Mitchell’s web site to learn more about her music, download lyrics and sample tracks
• Explore the Smithsonian Folkways label
• Read other reviews of this CD and listen to samples on Amazon.