Basement!

Todd's been working for over a year now on finishing our basement, and today we finally started mudding and taping the drywall. It feels like we're entering the homestretch, though there's the mudding, the priming and painting, the trim work and door hanging, and the floor to install. Still, we've come a long way.
Here are pictures of our layout and progress. These were taken a few weeks ago already, so we have more of the drywall up, but you get the idea.

The big family room with double-sided fireplace. Off to the right is the door into the cap garage.

Family room view from the door into the cap garage. You can see the bottom of the stairs in the middle back.

We're hoping to add a wet bar and an island in this corner. Also an under-stair storage area.

Sorry this picture is so dark, but this will be the reading room, with comfy chairs around the fireplace.

This back corner will be the computer and study space, with a storage closet on the right. Stairs are just to the left. To the right in back is a roughed-in bathroom, which we won't finish yet, and the mechanical room. Apologies on the public display of litterboxes...

And lastly, this will be the spare bedroom/art studio/music room/home office. The bays in the wall are for built-in shelving. We get lots of afternoon light in all the basement windows, and they look out on our fledgling garden, so someday I think it's going to be really beautiful down here. Cosy too, with that fireplace.

Mad props to Todd for working so hard. He's done 95% of what you see all by himself... framing, wiring, lifting all that drywall...

Yum

Getting together with friends is always an excuse to bake. Sometimes I even go for something fancy, like lemon meringue pie. That is hand-beaten meringue, folks. Todd had to take over the last few minutes because my arm was falling off.

A productive day: cinnamon rolls, baked sweet potatoes, and lemon meringue pie!

Meringue. Meeerringuueee.

Other recent goodies include rice pudding, teisen lap, and chocolate chip cookies.

Last week Roo and I tried making these for Valentines decorations, but I was kinda bummed about the project. She wasn't able to help much - the crayons were too hard for her to shave, and then I had to do the ironing and the cutting-out. And they were really quite fragile. Maybe I didn't heat them enough. But at least she had fun coloring with the other crayons in my big box.