Now that we have a floor in the basement, many other things can get finished. This is the mudroom and the stairs from the garage to the foyer.

We also have stairs to the sub-basement, otherwise known as the Pit of Darkness--where we used to keep all the snow. This is a significant development, these stairs. I haven't been in this basement since the foundation was poured last November--because it was just a big deep hole in the ground, and I didn't want to have to deal with the embarrassment of needing to be rescued from it. As a result, I didn't actually know what it looked like down there.

So, it was with great excitement this afternoon that I walked down the brand new stairs and discovered that...it looks like a basement. But it's a great basement, with endless possibilities. Storage space, workout room, dungeon for heretics--you name it. I even have an alcove picked out in which I can brick someone up if they annoy me.

These are our kitchen cabinets, which were delivered a couple of weeks ago. We ordered them on the assumption that they'd take the normal eight weeks to arrive, and they showed up in three. This left us with the challenge of finding a place to keep them until the insulation and sheetrocking could be finished. So, they currently live down here.

Maybe they were trying to make up for some of the other delays by arriving way too early...