July 24th!

Our anniversary was great, but the best part was that we ordered carpet for the basement! It's Frieze carpet and here's a great description I found of it. (Just to prove to myself the salesman wasn't trying to sell us a piece of crap and talk it up!)

"Are you in the carpet market for a long lasting carpet that can last you for a decade or more? Are you planning wall to wall carpeting that will not track and get dirt easily? Then you may just be looking for a Frieze carpet. With having virtually zero track area and having low maintenance requirements, it may suit your needs quite perfectly.
Frieze carpets have a very high twist level compared to most rugs. It has around 9 twists per inch which makes it very springy and resilient to pressure. This resiliency and curliness makes it for all intents and purposes track free. Thus, these carpets are highly used for areas with high traffic. The coiling of the material in different directions is what hides the tracks. This type of carpet also is usually made with very soft, very fine fabrics so it feels very feet friendly.
Aside from the fact that the Frieze carpet hides and diminishes tracks, it is also relatively easy to clean in comparison to other carpets. Also due to its high twist level, it hides dirt and grime fairly well so you have to do no more than the occasional vacuuming for this type of carpet.
The only downside of this type of carpet is that due to the fact that it is very springy and that the material tends to stick out in various directions, most carpets in this type are made in simple, block designs. Complex patterns in Frieze carpets are relatively hard to find but some manufacturers make up for it by combining colors for a more textured effect."

Looks like we got a great deal! We ended up getting a 'remnant' piece. Basically someone bought carpet but when it came in, the colored didn't match the sample exactly. It was origionally $2.79/foot but was marked down for 1.99/foot because of the color difference. We talked the saleman down to 1.10/foot with .33/foot for pad and .60/foot for installation...so we got our carpet for about 2/foot. Pretty good deal!!! It's a light tan color, I really hope it isn't too dark but I didn't want to get a cream/white because I'm afraid it will show dirt too much. The basement is going to be a family room and a play room so you know, when the kids arrive, it won't be staying clean for too long!

It's getting installed on the 24th so that gives us a major deadline. I told Jeff I want everything done, except trim, by then. I don't want to have to worry about keeping the carpet clean from paint, dust, dirt, etc! We have to finish the ceiling, which won't take too long. Then install some wood around the beam and finish up the window trim. We also need to get the table saw out of the 'shop' and throw away all the extra drywall/wood that we're storing down there. The shop was handy but now we're afraid if we keep all Jeff's tools down there it will just be a mess if anything gets tracked into the finished parts, so we're moving all Jeff's tools to the garage. Then, the shop will become a huge storage room and the closet in the basement will become our extra pantry/linen closet. We don't have alot of storage on the main floor so I think I'll put all our extra toilet paper, paper towels, canned goods, etc down there. Plus some cleaning supplies that we don't use that often.

I can't wait to post finished pics!! I already have a jewerly party planned for the 20th of August, a girls night with my mom and stisters sometime in August and then a craft night with the girls in September! Jeff also says he's going to do a poker night once a month! I think we'll definatly put this basement to use :-)

Jeff also made an armour (sp?) when he was in high school. I'm going to strip it and refinish it to match our living room furniture and put that in the main floor living room. It's more formal so I think it will look good with the TV hidden. However, we also need to buy a new TV for in there now too! Maybe I'll get one after Thanksgiving on sale!

Ok..I'm really rambling. I better go do something else! Hopefully new pics very, very soon!