Take it on Tuesday Blog Hop: Basement Curtains

As you read yesterday, I’ve was on a cruise for 10 days last week. I had scheduled last week’s DIY Home Management Binder printables for the blog hop, but I was not able to have internet access while on the cruise and thus was not very active on the blogsphere. I am excited to be back now!

Last week, my favorite projects were:

Kari’s {Newlyweds on a Budget} Gallery Wall with Painted Baby Crib

Jennifer’s {Vintage Gwen} Best of 2011 projects

———————————————————————-

Basement Curtains

This week I am guest posting! Yay! Who am I? I am Betsy’s husband! You may remember me from posts such as ‘What to do with that old smart phone’ and other more well known posts such as ‘what to do with that old smart phone.’ You know the ones.

Moving on.

This week’s TIOT (Take It On Tuesday, we call it TIOT for short in this house) dealt with big man tools. So, in order to help Betsy not go crazy with posts, and in order to really have you feeling the sweat and groans to get the full experience, we thought I should write the post.

Here is the breakdown:

We have this weird wall in our basement, it juts out at around the 5/8ths mark and spans more than half the finished portion… I could see how it would make a great bedroom for a teenager or even a college student living at home or with friends, but laws have changed and because of fire codes no one can actually live in our basement. So… with this weird wall jutting out… what do we do?

So we decided to knock it down….

But as I am not as muscular as this guy, and not as angry, we decided that it would cost too much money and would be too much work.

So we now plan on having the far/smaller side of the section become our walk-in wine cellar (probably months down the road). Our basement is a great cool/dry enviornment and already stores the few bottles we own. (We were up to 17 at one point… but then we had a NY party and… well… you know how it goes.)

With this walk-in wine cellar as our ultimate goal (or one CLOSE to it, heh…), we had to figure out what to do with the area to section it off that would not create a lot of work.

In comes the curtain idea.

We decided to get a tension rod and section off the second part of the room. This seems like the simplest TIOT ever, right? Buy your rod, buy your curtains, done.

Not so much.

Unfortunately with the way our mis-matched wall jutted out it just so happened to jut out right towards the only window in our basement. We can’t put a tension rod on a window.

However! Above the window sat your usual basement ceiling. No finish, just boards between cement walls. Of course, that meant drilling a hole through one of the boards to allow the rod to slide through, and it meant being comfortable with a section of curtain that would never completely open. (But we found ways around that too.)

So, the hole was drilled, and the rod slipped through. I did not have a big enough drill bit, so I used the largest I had and drilled four holes close together, then banged the rest out. It is not as pretty of a finish, but it got the job done and I can go back later with a slightly larger bit and make it look pretty later.

So we stretch out the rod… and it isn’t long enough… Less than a foot too short.

What do you do then?

You take your extra pallets from your basement organization TIOT, cut them up and extend your wall!

After about an hour or so of toiling over the pallets with a hand saw I would say it was worth not spending the gas and five bucks to go back to the store and get a longer rod… maybe you would not agree.

In the end, we found great curtains at Wal-Mart for a decent price and got it all up and ready before our New Year’s Eve party!

The finished product:

See you next time! We will be talking about ‘What you can do with that new dumb phone!’ (ok, maybe not…)

-M@

————————————————————-

What projects have you been working on lately?

*Link to a specific post–not your home page, no giveaways
*Link something you’ve done in the last month
*Post my button on your blog (either the button below or my “Romance on a Dime” button on the sidebar)
*Visit & comment on at least TWO other links posted
*Come back to see if you’ve been featured!

<a href=”http://romanceonadime.com/category/take-it-on-tuesday/”target=”_blank”><img src=”http://romanceonadime.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/TIOT-blog-hop-e1319605495420.jpg”alt=”RomanceOnADime.com” width=”125″ height=”125″ /></a>

 

Thank you all! I LOVE seeing what you’ve been up to! Linking up to Pinning and Singing on the Weekend, Made by You Mondays, More the Merrier Monday, Tuesday’s Treasures, Tip Me Tuesday,Take a Look Tuesday, Show Me What Ya Got, Tutorial Tuesday, Hope Studios, Share the Wealth Wednesday, Wow Me Wednesday, and Show & Share.

© 2012, Betsy Pool. All rights reserved.