More basement progress

This weekend we continued to take care of the finish work as we get very close to the end of this long, long project. While I installed the baseboard and quarter-round trim, my wife assembled a bunch of Ikea cabinets for her sewing room.
Here are some of the cabinets going together in the sewing room. The two dressers in the middle will have a large tabletop placed over the top for a large working surface.



Here's a pic of the home theater with all but a couple of small pieces of trim installed. Also shown is a large 8x10 shag rug we purchased online from NaturalAreaRugs.com



A closer shot of the rug next to the wall. We really love the color and soft feel of this rug. Definitely a bargain for the price we paid.



An even closer shot of the shag rug:



I also wired up the subpanel and started ripping out drywall under the main service panel in the garage. Next weekend I'll connect the main panel to the subpanel to finish up the electrical work. I already installed a 2-pole 40A feeder in the main service panel. The French doors I mentioned in an earlier post still need painted, as does the ugly door that leads outside. With the holiday weekend coming up augmented by a vacation day, we have a long 4-day weekend to hopefully finish up the basement and begin moving in.

Astro Motion Technologies takes off

A while back in this thread I talked about the work that Tom at Astro Motion Technologies did on my EQ6 mount. Since then many people have asked me when this modification would be available to the public. Today I just happened to check Andy's Shot Glass to see if there was anything new and I was happy to see an article about AMT and an ordering page. Looks like they finally got it going and I am glad to have been a part of the beta testing of this process. I can attest to the improvement in my mount's performance. You can see my test data in the FAQ section of the article. If you are interested in getting this work done on your mount, head over to the following link:
http://www.andysshotglass.com/astromo_mod_store.html

Now if I can ever get my basement finished I'll get back to astrophotography.

Floor progress - Day 2

It was painful, and we moved a little slow today, but we managed to complete the rest of the laminate floor installation in the basement. Even though the home theater is a little smaller than the room we did yesterday we still took about the same amount of time. It's a great feeling to have this done, even with the pain we are feeling right now after two days of this stuff.
Here's the view as you come down to the bottom of the stairs from the 1st floor:



Looking from one room into the next:



Another view of the back of the room:



The cats seem hesitant to explore this new world, except for Cho-Cho:



Base molding and quarter-round will be installed in the next week or so to finish off the rooms. Next weekend we'll head down to Ikea to pick up some cabinets for the sewing room and a computer table for me. Our current entertainment center, which is oak, will be refinished to better match the room. And the stairs need sanded and stained/painted. Hopefully over Labor Day weekend we will be "moving in" to this new space.

Floor progress - Day 1

Today we installed the laminate flooring in my wife's sewing & crafts room - the largest room in the basement. It was over 6 hours of hard work and we are hurting a bit tonight while we sit and watch the Olympics.
Here is what is looked like this morning with the FloorMuffler padding down:



The flooring sits ready in the home theater:



After a couple of hours of work, we are making pretty good progress:



Finally, the room is done:



A closer shot of the finished floor:



Tomorrow we'll tackle the home theater, which is only slightly smaller. Hopefully we will make better progress if we are not slowed too much by sore muscles and painful joints.

Flooring is here!

We picked up our basement flooring yesterday from the Atlanta Flooring Design Center in Suwanee. We ended picking a Shaw laminate with a very rustic look. The design center let us take some large display samples home last Saturday and we immediately loved the Shenandoah series 9mm laminate in the Goldenrod color. We headed back there the same day and placed our order. It didn't take long to come in, which I would expect when Shaw is just right up in Dalton, GA.
We haven't installed it yet - that will begin Saturday morning. But we couldn't resist putting some planks on the floor to see how it looked. This is some of the most realistic looking laminate flooring we have seen. I think it really fits in with the relaxed country look we are going for. My wife started making some great curtains in a shabby chic style that will go very well with everything. Here's a photo: