Isaac, Marcy, Sophie, Aspen, Luke, and Hazel: Basement Finishing

In January 2021, we decided to start finishing our basement. My good friend and neighbor, Danielle, offered to help us. So she helped us find subs and coordinate everything.

At the time we decided to finish the basement, building material prices were going through the roof. Due to covid, there were lots of shortages on supplies. There was also a freeze in Texas that caused insulation to be really hard to get. So it took a really long time to get everything done. We finally finished in September, which took just as long to finish the basement as it did to build the whole house.

Danielle really loves her framer, but I wasn't super impressed with him. He kept charging me more and more money, even though I told him everything I wanted done the first time. And he messed up a few things that caused problems later down the road.

But the insulation, plumbing, HVAC, drywall, painters, and finish work guys did great jobs.

We got our flooring from Ogden's Flooring. They messed things up sooo many times. After waiting 5 weeks for our flooring to come in, we found out the sale's rep ordered the wrong stair pieces. Then after they were installed, they all started popping off within 3 days. Also, the carpet guy came and cut the carpet the wrong direction, so it didn't fit in the rooms. So they had to re-order that as well. It was a total fiasco.

Our cabinets were super back-ordered for 17 weeks, so that slowed us down a lot.

But the tile guy for a the bathroom was the worst. It took over 6 weeks for it to be completed, even though it should have been done in 4 days max. He had some personal issues going on. We tried to be supportive of his difficulties, but he was such a flake, and his quality of work was terrible. Eventually, the guy's dad came to finish the job. I'm still disappointed in the way it turned out, but what can you do?

Finally, the guy who built the built-in bookshelves (the same guy who did our main house) took forever to come. The shelves he built are a lot smaller than I was going for, but at this point I just wanted to be done. But eventually it was finished. It was a long, and often stressful process, but I'm so glad to have it done.

Here's what it looks like finished (I still need pictures for the walls and decorations).