Finished Preschool room

Preschool Room before
Preschool after

The finished product

Wow! We finally finished our basement that we have been working on for the past 4 months. It has been a huge project that seemed like we would never be able to accomplish. In the end we have become amazed that we could actually create a living space with our own 2 hands and hard work. We have had a lot of help from family and friends and are truly grateful to them for all their time and effort to help us. We would have never made our deadline without them.
This whole project started when a women in our ward said that a Japanese Women and her daughter wanted to come and live here for the school year, but would like more of a place of their own. We had been wanting to make an apartment anyway, so this was the perfect opportunity to actually do it, and we felt it was worth while since it would bring in rent for a side income.
Then in the middle of our project for the apartment, I was offered to take over a preschool for someone who got a full time teaching job. We felt good about the opportunity to teach in our home and have another side income, so we said yes. I only made this decision after asking my sister in law, Meg, if she wanted to do it with me, so that she could teach one class and I could teach the other and she could help when my baby comes. She was very excited about the idea, so everything fell into place. This meant finishing an additional room for the preschool on top of the apartment we were already working on. We only had 4 weeks to complete this room and then 3 more after that to finish the apartment. I was stressing the whole time that it could not be done, but after we finished the preschool room on time and I saw that it could happen, I had faith that it would all come together. Wow, what an accomplishment. Hats off to my husband Budd, who worked every spare minute to make it all happen. I was amazed at his skill and inventiveness to make everything work, when problems arouse.
Here are a few pics of the before and after. The before are actually when we had already done drywall and mudding, but I forgot to take the pictures when it was just studs.
We are so happy with how it turned out and feel blessed to have these two opportunities in our basement.'

Apartment kitchen/front room before:



Apartment Kitchen/front room after

Bathroom
bath