Once upon a time, the basement had a dirt floor and a ceiling at 5' 6", and there was a desk in the corner of a not-so-large bedroom. Then the decision was made to turn the basement into an office. The first step was to put in an egress window .. which required digging a 4x7x6 foot hole outside the house, and cutting through a 22" thick fieldstone foundation. Long story, but nobody died.
Then came removing 624 or so cubic feet of clay from the basement, through aforementioned window, with buckets. Long story, one bicep got torn. Ouch.
Next, in went 3 tons of gravel, drain tile, and a sump pump.
After that, a concrete ledge was poured around the edge. I'm told it can be a bad thing to have your foundation sitting on clay, one foot or so above the actual floor. I got nominated to shovel concrete. My husband got to push a wheelbarrow half-full of concrete across a gravel floor and tip it into the forms, and I ran the shovel ... getting the concrete out of the wheelbarrow, rearranging it in the forms, and smoothing things out.
Then, came pouring the floor. Originally, it was going to be a two person operation. Sanity prevailed, however, and we instead opted to have the job done right. (This ensured that the floor resembled something flat, rather than moguls. It also permits me to have pictures. According to plan A, I would have been the guy in the picture.) 
Twenty four hours after the first picture, the second picture was taken. I had no clue that you could set up an office on concrete a mere 24 hours after it arrived in a truck in the driveway. 21 hours after the concrete truck left. And closer to 20 hours after the final smoothings took place. But that's what happened. 
In the meantime, I've been knitting socks. KnitPicks Gloss, in Dusk, with lace panel.
And Claudia's Handpainted Yarns, John B., with all-around lace, slightly modified because I didn't have the pattern with me and turned it into a 10 stitch repeat instead of 12.
