Now that you’ve had plenty of time to read up on Regency fashion, it’s quiz time: my corset is ready to show off. Click on the small photo to see front and back pictures on The Fitting Room dressmaker’s form and laid flat at home. The outer fabric is silk brocade, a white floral design on white background. The close-up photos should give an idea of the pattern and show off some of the stitching along the bodice. The inner fabric is white cotton coutil. The wooden busk slides into an inside front center pocket, where it is tied in place. Drawstrings adjust the bodice line and shoulder straps. All these smaller strings are made of thin cord, but can easily be switched out for prettier satin ribbon if I choose.

The Fitting Room’s signature ribbon is stitched around the inner waistline, conveniently indicating where the lacing should be looped so that the wearer can tighten up or adjust the corset herself. Most genuine Regency corsets were laced with the single lacing style rather than crossed, but the crossed style is supposed to be easier to manage without assistance. Single or crossed, I’m glad I have all summer to practice getting in and out of the corset and adjusting the fit. It’s not terribly tricky, but it does take getting used to.

To care for the corset, it may be rolled up or folded (keeping it in a pillowcase is a good idea), then stored in a drawer. After the corset has been worn, it should be opened and left out for 24 hours before storing so perspiration and other body oils have a chance to dry. This corset can’t be washed, but Dryel® Stain Remover and Febreeze® Fabric Refresher™ are safe to use and recommended if needed.

Many thanks to Marie of The Fitting Room. This garment has been exquisitely crafted and is so beautiful. Almost a shame that it will be hidden from view!

The west bedroom, hallway, and workroom are painted and the finish electrical work and duct covers have been installed — that’s nearly half the basement! We’ll share photos once the wood trim, doors, and carpet are in place, but for now there’s a lot of satisfaction to see real rooms where there was nothing before.

After an admiration break, it was time to clean out the family room so it can receive the same treatment. Building supplies were moved into the finished bedroom while tools and other storage items took their proper place in the work room. We had hoped to include the east bedroom in this mudding/taping phase, but all this moving around has proven that we still have a lot of extra stuff we’re not using. Hence, the room looks like a garage sale about to happen: full of items destined for the thrift store. It also took a fair amount of time to clean the dried mud off the floors: the how-to book promised easy and quick removal, but it took a lot of scrubbing.

After covering the new fireplace and bar cabinets with protective sheeting (the cabinets are too large to be moved or stored elsewhere), The Gimlet donned his now very crusty mudding clothes (not to be confused with his equally crusty painting clothes) and got to work. Thanks to his previous experience, this first coat of mud and tape went up in a little over one day, and he was able to apply the first layer to the staircase as well.

The basement staircase has been stubbornly grungy since we first moved in. We assumed the walls could be washed and a fresh coat of paint would solve the problem. But as The Gimlet scrubbed, a familiar brown, sticky stain bloomed: the nicotine he remembered and hated from the first floor remodel. So like any good B-movie hero, The Gimlet brought the atomics KILZ back out of retirement the debris pile and he’ll be painting the staircase with that highly effective, but sometimes hallucinogenic, oil-based primer. Should be a treat.

After the family room and staircase are painted and the finish electrical installed, the east bedroom gets its turn next. The laundry room, with all its odd corners and packed floor-to-ceiling with storage, will be the last room to be finished. Then we’ll paint and install the wood trim and doors and lay the carpet. More houseguests are due to arrive in early September; at the risk of jinxing the project, we’re hoping to have a completed basement well before then.

If all this were not enough, while waiting for the paint to dry, The Gimlet installed a new light fixture in the dining room.

Mud — mud everywhere! In order to put the tape and joint compound (commonly called “mud”) on the walls and ceiling I used the traditional tools. My hand has become one with the 6 inch and 12 inch knives. It takes three layers of mud to finish the walls. The first layer embeds the tape against the drywall. Layers two and three are done to smooth out the wall, and then you sand it smooth. This week I will begin sanding. Drying takes so long here I was wondering how a house can be built in one week on TV. Tonight they showed a butane heater running the temperature up to between 90 and 100 degrees to dry out the mud. Now I know how they do it on TV.

Because of tools and storage in the basement, I cannot do the mud over the entire basement at once. I have started in the workroom, to develop some ability to do this right, and also in one of the back bedrooms and hallway after my skill level improved. The next rooms will be the rec room and stair case. Finally will be the other back bedroom and the laundry room. I still need to hang the metal corners, but that will go quickly.

While I was waiting for layer two to dry, I tiled the fireplace surround. When I finished the third layer of mud I was able to grout the surround. My nifty new diamond bladed wet saw worked great to cut the marble tiles. The fireplace surround project will be finished when I install a wood trim border to cover the edges between the marble and the wall.

After I finish sanding the two rooms I am working on I will be putting a primer/sealer on the walls and follow that, in the back bedroom and hallway with paint. I think I will do the finish electrical after the paint, but before I move tools and stuff into the rooms. I just like the idea of having two rooms completed. This may change depending on my mood at the time.

Editor’s note: As you might guess from the title, The Gimlet completed his task list from an earlier post. There is still plenty to do, and sadly the basement won’t be finished in time to accommodate our out-of-town guests, but the end is in sight.

Last night we finally got the last of the wall board up. I feel like it took quite a long time, but I had to tear out one third of the basement, put in the electrical circuit and put in the drywall. Still this has been an odyssey.

I have purchased some of the mud needed and all the tape needed to finish the drywall. After we complete that, and I tile the fireplace surround, it will be time to seal the drywall, paint the walls, finish electrical & plumbing, add the wet bar (including tiling the countertop) and do the finish carpentry. The finish carpentry will be to add crown moldings, shelves on the half-walls, stair baseboards and a railing, and baseboards in the rest of the basement. The carpet is paid for and has arrived, and the marble tile was ordered today and should arrive later this week. After all I mentioned above we will install the carpet and have a beautiful, but empty basement.

First, by way of a mental health break: spring is here! The camellia is finally in bloom, and the lilacs should follow. Pretty! Okay; back to work.

While we’re not as far along as we had hoped to be, we’re happy to report that most of the projects on The Gimlet’s task list are complete or well underway. The family room, laundry room, hallway and staircase are fully wired, plumbed, insulated, and drywalled, plus The Gimlet built some nice shelving in the laundry room. The original homeowners left behind some sheets of water-resistant drywall, so we used that in the laundry room (hence the green wall).

The family room’s gas fireplace insert was installed earlier this week, much to our delight. Not only is it wonderful to have one fully functional, lovely appliance in the midst of the piles of construction debris, but we’ve never owned a remote control that shoots flames before, and are unsure how we lived before possessing such a device. Speaking of flame throwers, rest assured: there will be a new look to the fireplace area and there will be a large high-definition, plasma screen television mounted above the fireplace, but the Man-Cave Monster Television Faction and the Attractive Mantle and Surround Faction are still in negotiations over details.

Back to the list, we decided to drywall the workroom last so it could be used as a staging area for the rest of the remodel, but it is wired and insulated. Yesterday the east bedroom was demolished to the studs and today The Gimlet is adding framing support where needed, updating the wiring, and adding insulation. We only have about one week left before we must return our friend’s panel lift, so the race is on to install as much drywall as possible.

Once the drywall is in place, another friend, The Sheetrocking Swede, has very graciously offered his expertise to mud, tape, and in all ways cover up our mistakes and make the walls look as nice as we’d like them to be. Carpet for the family room, hallway, bedrooms and staircase is on order as well, to be installed after the rooms are painted and finished with crown molding and baseboards to match the upstairs. Our goal is to have the paint, trim and carpet in place by early May to greet our expected houseguests. We can dream, right?

PS: Check out the bar sink. Obviously meant to be.

As we move forward and begin drywalling the laundry room, it seems like a good time to mention the first small steps in the reef process. The Gimlet installed two 20-amp circuits and dedicated one switch on the Manabloc for the system. The water line will connect to a reverse osmosis/deionization unit (RO/DI); the resulting water will then be used to make saltwater and as freshwater topoff.

A 12′ x 3′ area with 8′ ceiling is available for the tank site, and as the family room is in the basement, the tank will rest on a concrete floor. The tank will share a wall with the laundry room. Originally the plan was to house the tank in the laundry room, creating a picture window effect in the family room while giving plenty of space to work and get wet, but unfortunately the wall is a weight-bearing wall and cannot be altered. With that in mind, I hope to house the sump, refugium, and other equipment in the laundry room, below and behind the display tank.

Not sure how this will all work out, which brings up the most important step in this whole process: research. This large space affords a wonderful opportunity in reefkeeping, and I want to be as successful as possible. I’ve been reading, checking out the myriad on-line resources and communities, and our previous nano experience taught us some valuable hands-on lessons. So for now, I’m deciding how large of a tank to get, pondering deep versus shallow (leaning towards shallow; I like being able to reach in and tinker around), learning about plumbing and lighting options, and of course livestock choices (which will affect the kind of light I choose).

Suggested reading:

• Fenner, Robert M. The Conscientious Marine Aquarist. Microcosm: Vermont, 1998. The first time I entered a local saltwater-specialty store, the clerk strongly suggested I read this before doing anything else. Not only does this book provide excellent, well-written (even funny at times), easy-to-understand advice, it also seeks to instill a sense of responsibility and stewardship for the world’s coral reefs. A must-have.
• Michael, Scott W. and Shimek, Ronald L. Pocket Expert Guides: Marine Fishes and Marine Invertebrates. Microcosm: Vermont, 1999 and 2004. I’m saving up to buy Scott Michael’s more detailed Reef Fishes series, but in the meantime, these two Pocket Expert guides are very useful for drawing up wish lists. Information for the fishes includes: maximum length, range (for those planning geographic-specific reefs), minimum aquarium size, foods and feeding, aquarium suitability and reef aquarium compatibility, and captive care. The invertebrates book includes a category for lighting.

These three books are a great place to start. I have read a few other excellent specialty books on aquarium design, corals, clownfishes, and (sigh) my Hanauma Bay souvenir booklet. Given my past battle with cyanobacteria, a guide to algae is also on my wish list. (Perhaps a little light reading at the community pool during the kids’ swimming lessons?)

At any rate, this post is likely to be the last on the reef tank for quite some time, as construction probably won’t get fully underway for another year or two.

I spent the last month wiring lights and pulling cable for outlets. The first project was to put the can lights in place. I wired them together on a 15 amp circuit using 14/2 WG cable. That circuit also has lights for over the bar and will have lights for the hall (likely the last bit of wiring I will do). We have surrounded the rec room with outlets on two 20 amp circuits (12/2 WG). There is also a specific circuit for the future plasma screen TV (15 amp 14/2 WG ) over the fireplace, and two additional 20 amp circuits for the wall common between the rec room and the laundry room. (Your usual narrator has quite a thing for large fish tanks, and I am just planning ahead for a project set for my future.). | …continue reading Basement, part four: Fiat lux

Since our last posting I finished framing the stairs and the wall in the laundry room. I have two half walls to finish framing in the work room and the laundry room. However, I ran out of lumber and decided to take care of a few other items. With the wall framed in the laundry room, I was able to move the washer and dryer next to each other. Moving the appliances is the easy part. Getting the water, drain and electrical in place is the difficult part. | …continue reading Basement, part three: A little bit of everything

I’m sending NR out into the world again, this time to the Moondance International Film Festival in Boulder, Colorado. December 31 is the early bird deadline; all submissions are due by April. Last year the semi-finalists and finalists were announced in May and the winners were announced at the festival in June. Moondance’s mission, as per their web site:

Moondance promotes, encourages, educates and rewards non-violent conflict resolution in writing, the theatre arts & film. Moondance also promises to raise awareness of the invaluable contributions of women to the entertainment community, and to encourage environmental conservation & protection.

Wish me luck — I could use some.

Saturday afternoon the home improvement store delivery truck delivered lumber and insulation for the next phase of our basement remodeling project. One of the delivery men asked if Thing One would like to pull the air horn on the truck. Thing One was very excited to do it. Thing Two does not like loud noises and started to cry.

The first task in the plan was to fix the stair case. Monday after work I pulled out the 1×10 boards out of the wood pile and cut them to fit as risers. I glued the risers in place and then used screws to tie the risers to the treads from underneath and above. Screws on either side of the riser finished it up. I continued until I ran out of screws. I thought I would run to the store to buy more, until I looked outside and saw ice on the roads. | …continue reading Basement, part two: Stairs and framing