The Basement!

I wish the pictures showed how wonderful everything looked; it was so much better in person. Thank you to my parents for all of their hard work! Patrick did a good job on the construction of our basement, and the credit for the details goes to my parents.

The party was a success! I'm guessing about 40 staff members and significant others filled our house. In true party fashion, we all swarmed the kitchen island (FOOD!) for the first hour! Here are two pictures from upstairs.
My mom did an awesome job with the garland on our railings, she hung ornament bulbs from it.

The basement is one large area; at the bottom of the stairs is the TV area....
...behind the TV area is our piano, it was decorated with our St. Patrick's Day-themed Santa, Nutcracker and Snow Globe. Next to the piano (behind Finley) is an open space that will become Finley's play area, during the party we set up a card table and chairs for extra seating.
Attached to the play area is the bathroom; I love the way the tile turned out, the small strip of tiles are glass - they look great!
Adjacent to the bathroom is our future exercise room, during the party it housed (actually hid) toys!
Just beyond the couches, is our pool table. Finley loves to sit on it and roll the balls around.
We put a tree in the arched space, it's our future game-table area...future, because we still need to buy a game-table :)

Next to the pool table is the bar, the stools were borrowed from upstairs (we didn't need them during the party and haven't purchased any for downstairs yet, so it worked out well). Our plan is to turn the bar into an Irish Pub - Patrick has tentatively named it "Finley's Irish Pub". We'll be on the lookout for Irish decorations...again, in the future :)
Patrick is very excited about the TV hanging behind the bar. Don't worry, the nice extension cords to the lamp were put away before the party.

On Friday night, Patrick drove to Hudson to purchase two bar refrigerators (on the left). He's very excited about the clear doors. His impulse purchase at Home Depot? A dishwasher that was a "really good deal".

This picture is a view of the living space when standing behind the bar...way in the back (near the white card table) is the doorway to the exercise room and the hallway that leads to the bedroom (no pictures of the bedroom).

So, it's really a work in progress still! We have plans for future purchases - leather couch (Patrick really wants one), game-table, exercise equipment and Irish decorations. But, it's looking good considering six weeks ago it was a totally unfinished basement! Good work Daddy! As I type, he's napping on the couch in "his" basement - I may not ever see Patrick again!