Why I Oughta...

2 of my nephews won their "Super Bowl" games in their Pop Warner leagues last week and to celebrate, I took them out for a meal.  I think the straws were the biggest hit. Hopefully, one of them will develop into a kicker soon.

Well...actually this picture is of a return, but you get the point.  The ductwork for heating and cooling the basement is *mostly* in the new furnace is helping heat the space up nicely. Down to 3 things to do before the drywall:  plumbing, insulation, and cable tv wires.

Woke up this morning to the first hard frost of year.  Winter is nigh .

Since the day we bought the house, the basement stairs have always been one of the worst-built features of our house.  They're short, uneven, and difficult to walk down.  When we re-built the house, we moved the opening of the basement from the south side to the north side (out of the kitchen and into a hallway), but that's about it.  Until the basement project started.  Then, I figured if we were spending a boatload of dough to finish the space, we needed to get serious about the stairs. The problem?  When they built these, they did just about the best they could - there isn't a lot of headroom and that's why they cut down the runs and the rises. So, what was the solution?  Rebuild them and split that platform into 2 'wedge-shaped' stairs. Here's a shot of what I saw yesterday after the the stairs had been torn out and the new stringers had been installed. The stairs have made a big change on the feel of the basement - adding a lot of ease to gett

The framing is done*.  The soffits are built.  All the various ducts are hidden behind these wooden structures so we can get the drywall hung. All that's left is the plumbing and some insulation before the drywall crew shows up. *by saying 'done', I mean MOSTLY done.  There's a few little things that I have to finish up.  But the bulk of the work is done.

The Direct Vent firebox is framed in.  We left the 2X4's in the center laying behind it so we can do the connections of gas/electric and also the duct work.  I decided against the raised hearth because of the safety issues and will just figure out what the extra pipe might look like.

Two weeks ago, I posted this image of the one Lemax building that I thought I'd want the most - Frosty's Christmas Tree Lot .  When I found the CaroleTown buildings at Lowes this weekend, the first thing I noticed was the copycat Tree Lot - with a different name:  Sowders. So, which one to buy?  Whichever is on sale after Christmas?  It's a deal.