Day Seven in the Basement: Inspection

No, you didn't read the title wrong and I didn't skip a few days.  It has been seven days on the project but nothing has happened the past few.  Inspection was scheduled for Monday so we had nothing over the weekend and then the inspector didn't show Monday so we had another day off. 

Yesterday, the inspector arrived and things can proceed.  The huge bonus to this was that they could finally hook up our laundry sink and we can do laundry again.  I have to climb over the grand canyon that is our basement floor but after a week without laundry, it is worth it.  The timing and inability to do laundry for so long was certainly not in our schedule.  Nor was our daughter getting the stomach flu, thus increasing the amount of gross laundry we had to do.   

I've been unhappy with the basement progress so I figured I would get something done to make me feel better about things.  Well, here's another project that didn't work out as planned.  I have all of the new light switches for the main rooms and decided to install them.  I have two problems now.  The dining room switch will require some additional plaster patching and painting up to the switch.  I guess the old plate covered more of the "hole" than the new one.  I also now hate how the HVAC controls look on this wall.  I believe I can move the humidification controls to the basement but I am not sure what to do with the thermostat. 

The switches in the living room didn't fare so well either.  The box behind the left switches was installed at a slight angle and not at the same height as the existing box.  I am going to have to go back in and fix this or it is apt to drive me crazy.  This also means more patching and painting.  On the bright side, I love the new switches and they add a lot to the room.

A few more details in the bedroom

One thing that annoys me about the Tinybungalow is the white-ness. I am not sure what the PO was thinking but it seems like everything except for most of the woodwork (thank God) is white. We have white walls, white lighting fixtures, and more white painted trim and doors than I care to deal with. Why they felt the need to paint the registers, I'll never know.

Another white thing that often bothers me are electrical outlet plates. In some instances, I think they are fine. Where I find them particularly funny are in some of the custom or high-end condos I have worked on. People seems to go out of the way to find a unique flooring or marble but when it comes to the outlets - the 49 cent jobbers from Menards seem to be typical. Am I the only on that thinks this looks tacky? In a historic home, it seems like you should do something a little more as well. I am not saying that everyone needs to run out to Rejuvination and spend 15 bucks on a switchplate and I don't think we all need to go back to push-button switches (though I do think they are cool). There are evn nice hand made and hand painted ones out there. I don't expect that from everyone either. I just think some people should give a little thought to the details. In our bedroom, I chose a low-end brass cover and black outlets and switches. For relatively little money (I think 12 bucks for the room), I am happy with the outcome. They aren't white and they make the room look that much closer to "finished".

On the other hand, I may have gone a bit too far with the "brassing" up of the details though. We are currently living with my experiment with metallic paint on the registers. I have a feeling these will be either black or dark brown by the end of the week.