The Beginning of the End

It's no secret that S started finishing our basement last year.  I think we kind of looked at completing the whole thing as a long term (i.e., 5-ish years) goal, but we got the construction bug once again early this winter and, well, we'll have it finished (hopefully) this year!

One of my top 5 "must haves" when we were looking at new homes was that it had to have a gas-fireplace.  I missed not having one when we were in our old home.  I wanted a place to hang Christmas stockings and the ease of flipping on a switch and having instant-cozy was oh-so appealing.  Ironically, our home lacked about 4 of my top 5's, including a gas fireplace.  We got a new contruction house but it was move-in-ready which means "as is."  We decided that we would put a gas fireplace in our basement when the time came.

Late last fall S started introducing the idea of a wood-burning stove to me.  At first I was, like, "no way."  Where's the switch I can flip on?  You really expect me to build a fire?  They are so dirty!  Where do I hang Christmas stockings?  And so on...  The day we went on my birthday date was a blizzard.  We stopped by our friends' house; they just happen to have a wood burning stove that was installed recently and they just happened to be burning it that day and it just happened to be AWESOME!

So my feelings began to change just a little bit.

Then Hurricane Sandy hit and I was suddenly thinking, "what would I do in the wintertime if there was a disaster?!"  Gas would be the first thing shut off in, say, an earthquake making a gas fireplace useless.  Then I thought about power going off in cold situations and not having a way to stay warm.  Then I thought about the flat stove top serving as a cook-top in a pinch.

I told S immediately that I thought we should get a wood-burning stove.  Immediately.

Ironically, S had been researching installation of said stoves and it turns out that they are, well, very expensive.  The stoves themselves are pretty reasonable, considering the high-quality construction these days (making them so efficient that you can even burn them on red-burn days.)  It's the triple-wall piping to exhaust the fumes/fire/whatever that is so expensive.  And we have to essentially run it up 3 stories.  So S said that maybe we should just do a gas fireplace instead.

We were back and forth for awhile but when it became utterly, beyond bitter cold earlier this month I think we were both convinced that, despite the cost, this is what we should do.  After all, you can't put a price on some things.  So S went and bought a stove.

Here it is.

And it's going to be awesome.

The basement is framed out.  The heating ducts are in place.  The electrical work is run.  S is amazing; once again, he did it all himself. 

Stay tuned for more pictures of our basement transformation.

It's going to be awesome.