Update

Ok, first things first. I'm sure you've all been wondering, "What has TheRanga been up to all these months?" Well, I'll tell you. I've been down in the basement.

We've got a semi-finished, 1100 sq. ft cave downstairs in the house that has served as a large storage room for the last year. Oh, and a Beirut arena. But that's pretty much it. For New Year's, the basement looked terrible, but we salvaged what we could out of it. We used cardboard boxes from a tv and some speaker towers to construct a makeshift Beirut table. Because I am a lazy sack of shit, that table was just taken down about a month ago, and the attendant beer bottles disposed of at the same time. Whoops.

Anyway, I've gotten my act together. Thanks to MomRanga, I got the idea to simply stain the concrete floor, rather than mess with installing carpet or tile flooring. For a manageable $650 and about 3-4 full, hard days of work, Anant and I got the basement looking good--a nice, leathery look with a muted gloss. We took that picture about 5 minutes after the acid was sprayed on, so the pic appears wetter/glossier than the floor finally ended up. The sealing process was a bit of a monkey F-ing a football, but we got it done, with only a few whitish spots here and there. The key lesson there--apply many thin coats of sealant, and make damn sure the floor is dry before you do it! Still, more or less, the floor looks excellent after applying the final coats of floor polish. I figure we saved probably $3-4k by doing it ourselves, rather than going with a professional.

Now, just to get some electrical wiring and baseboard trim, and we're good to go. ManCave, here we come! Next up--pool table, bar/buffet, projector, screen, and some thunderous speakers.