Don Davis gallery

Perhaps the greatest transformation took place downstairs in the Hotel Suite/Mud Room (pronounced hoh-tel sweet slash muhd roo m).

Back in January 2007, when we were still in the planning process for this renovation and working with the incredibly impractical Dumas architecture firm, we articulated a key goal:

Give a reason to go downstairs. The area is now a basement with a door to the backyard and feels like an excellent place to develop musculoskeletal maladies.

Thankfully, in January 2008, we cut our losses, stepped away from the firm’s over-priced, unbuildable schemes, sketched a more doable design ourselves and found a relatively inexpensive architect to complete the drawings.

While we waited for the renderings, we got to work. On March 16, we started doing the demolition on the walk-out basement ourselves.

In May 2008, we made the wise decision of hiring Steve Wasko as our primary builder. Structural repairs began downstairs on June 28. August was a month of tremendous progress. (Could a year have passed already?) One tree trunk lally column holding up the upstairs was replaced by two proper supports, among other improvements mandated by the structural engineer we needed to hire.

As Matt noted: “It is like getting a new house from the inside out.”

Replacement stairs were built in October 2008. Matt had the team construct them in an “L” shape, versus the straight shot we traversed in the past. With the space defined, and before Igor (whom I’d never recommend) installed the drywall over the new framing and insulation, we ordered a hospital curtain track from the easy to work with people at Brite Inc.

In January 2009, our Railco Metalcraft railings were installed. We took care of paint, stair treads and trim. By June, we were adding a radiant heating system to the floor, followed by tile. (We learned—too late—about the almost impossible to remove resin haze the pre-mixed grout leaves behind. Matt has doused the floor with various chemicals during the past weeks to try to reduce the shiny splotches.)

After a lot of searching online, we found a storage bed—and seem to have gotten the last one in the country from the very nice people at FOW in Fair Lawn.

After the bed arrived in mid-July, we did some fine-tuning, including tiling the ledge behind the bed, paint touch-ups and caulking, etc. Then came one of my favorite aspects of feathering my nest: Hanging art. At last, we could place the five paintings created, selected and given to us by Matt’s dad, Don.

The curtains Matt picked up at deep discount from a going out of business sale informed our paint color choice for that wall of the house. Then Matt’s mom, Jean, was kind enough to sew the two panels together, creating on-demand privacy.

I cannot believe what this house has been through... But for this corner of our home, at least, it may be time to declare: “Yes! We are done!”