Yeeks

Oh my I have had a busy couple of weeks.  No excuse for not blogging...but whew I'm tired.  

First, just as we were getting quotes to finish our basement (can we say expensive), the person who was upstairs fixing our washing machine told us that we would be needing a new washer. Fantastic! As I said, our washer and dryer our upstairs...in this closet:

Now, this is kind of nice because I don't have to go very far to hang up clothes, fold, etc.  I also kind of like that there is no laundry "room". For procrastinators such as myself, it forces me to put the stuff away. But and I say this with a big BUT, the problem is what do you do if it breaks? Well.  Let me tell you.  You need to have two people and one who can perform this move:

Except with a dryer.  Then the other guy climbs under and hooks up the washer.  It costs like $300 just to have it looked at.  Oh and forget about cleaning.  Tried that.  You end up disconnecting the dryer vent and then you have to pay $300.  

Now that the washer is broke we thought maybe we should just put it in the basement.  Well there is no hookup.  Of course.  So, next Tuesday they're jackhammering the floor and putting in a hookup.  Fun stuff.

Which brings me to my question of: Can anyone recommend they're washer and dryer? I'm just not sure if it's worth spending a lot to get a new fancy one.  But then I don't want to be buying another in 5 years.  So maybe it is? 

On the up side, last weekend was my birthday.  I'm the big 25 now, so I can officially rent a car!!!! I think I'm going to buy a new camera with some of the money I got.  I also got these lovely flowers:

Bring on the washer dryer suggestions!!!

To Paint or Not to Paint....

Ahhhh....I love home projects.  They keep me up into all hours of the night scouring the internet for ideas and inspiration.  Hubs and I have decided to finish our basement. After toiling for the past two years over whether or not to do it, we've decided to bite the bullet. 

We made the decision based off of a few things. One, we knew we wanted to finish it before we sell because houses in our area sell so so much better with finished basements.  And if we're going to do that I want to enjoy it for the next few years while we're still here!  Two, I feel like we will be able to get a good price with the economy the way it is now, and I am happy to give someone a job for a couple weeks. Third, the hubby needs a man cave.  I can only take so much ESPN.

So, within the next couple of months we hope to get this project going. We have went back and forth over doing some of it ourselves.  I still think we will do some of it, but, mostly we will have professionals do the job.  I don't want it to become a 3 year project. However, that doesn't mean we won't try to cut costs in some areas.

One of the ways we were thinking about cutting costs was to paint the basement ceiling as opposed to dry-walling or drop ceiling it.  Here are some inspiration pics.  I don't know where I got these, so sorry for the lack of credit.

I like the more industrial look.  I think after all is said and done, it is still a basement.  It will also save us a TON of money.  Our basement is close to 1500 sq ft.  So to ceiling all of that....well....we're waiting on the estimate, but it's a lot.

Has anyone ever done this or know someone who has? I think the biggest drawback is going to be the noise between the two floors.  But, I'm not sure how bad it would be. This is one of the first decisions we have to make because it is the very first thing you do.

Ahhhh!!! Decisions!!!