Home Improvement

Last Sunday Geogal and I cleaned out one of the rooms in the basement. You know the type--it's the quarter where all of the extraneous boxes and items wind up mainly because there's no other storage alternative. It's known in this dwelling as "the guest bedroom." Simply because it includes a queen size bed. The rare occasions where we have company finds this room as base of operations for the visitors.

While spring cleaning is a good pretext the real reason for the downsizing and moving of boxes and bed was due to a project that's been in planning stages for many moons now. Geogal has long wanted an egress window in the basement. We are acquainted with a fellow here in town who is engaged in his second career as a remodeler/construction dude/cabinetmaker/old item replacer and the like. I can't call him a contractor as I don't know if he is licensed, but no matter. He took a look at our basement last fall and recommended the window go into the larger bedroom rather than be situated in the den. We noted his advice then simply waited.

A short time ago he came by and said he and a colleague would be starting the job soon. Then last week he came around and said they would begin on Monday. Sure enough, they did.

It's now Saturday and our guest bedroom contains an eye-appealing egress window.

(For those of you not in the know, an egress window is a large rectangular ventana facing out to a well that is large enough to accommodate a normal-sized adult. Inside said well is a ladder reaching up to a translucent cover that opens out to (in this case) our backyard. It's meant for emergency exit of the basement as well as to allow a firefighter access to the "downstairs.")

So either today or tomorrow Geogal and I will move the items back into the "guest bedroom." We also have hope that we can organize the boxes just a bit better to make the room appear less cluttered. Not to mention we can now officially call this a "bedroom" (apparently it couldn't have the government-approved moniker without an egress window).

To add icing to the cake he also replaced our garage door yesterday (another project with which we approached him). Our old door was not only showing its age but also last fall it snapped one of the support springs which made it nearly impossible to raise or lower. We elected to take the more expensive route and just have a new door installed.

And now every time I go online to check the savings account balance I swear I hear the sound of a vacuum cleaner.