Basement reno

Lots of you back in Blighty have been saying you'll come and visit us, so we thought we ought to get our bums in gear and sort out some accommodation for you!

When we first started looking at Canadian properties way back on our first visit here, we were amazed at how every house had a basement. It seems to be a North American thing, but virtually every house here, new or old, is built with a basement. While many people use it as a space for storage (here in Canada, people don't really use their loft/attic space in the same way we do in the UK, so the basement is the place to store stuff. Our attic is full of serious amounts of insulation!) there are also many who convert the basement to extra living space, be it a large 'recreation' room or man cave, to a self contained rental suite. Our basement is a fantastic big space, and perfect for conversion to extra living space/bedroom space for guests to use when they come to stay. We also wanted to convert it before it filled up with 'stuff' (like our loft did in the UK....man, that was a pain in the rear end to clear!....it took us weeks!).

Neil was anxious to learn how to do a lot of the building work himself, but lacks a lot of know how. Luckily, he shares an office with a good friend, and fellow realtor, Paul, who also happens to have a background in the building trade - so he knows his stuff. This is perfect as it means that Paul and Neil can work together to convert our basement.

We will be posting regular updates on their progress on here. So far, we are at the stud wall stage, and the boys are busy wiring it all at the moment. We are putting 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room and a small kitchenette (also known as a wet bar) down there. There were already 2 windows, but we've added a third.

Here are a few before and after pics of our progress so far. More to come....