Thursday, November 12, 2009

Chapter 2: Basement Inspiration! Featuring: Young House Love


Okay - so I've been looking and looking for some inspiration for our basement... but all I can find on the web are these huge, luxurious finished basements, and well that's just not us. Our basement is long, but narrow compared to most, approximately (more of a guesstimate) 40'L x 15'W. The owners before us started finishing it- ran ductwork for the a/c & heat, put up the studs for the sheet rock, and even started to add a small room at one end.

But I've finally got some inspration from Young House Love's Tackling the Basement Posts! Their basement looked a lot like ours when they started. Cinder block walls (though they had a moisture problem, which thank the Lord we don't have) and a cement floor...

For one, drywalling a space like this (or paneling the walls) would be expensive... this couple painted their walls (of course they needed to in order to seal them w/ a waterproofing, oil based paint...) But the final outcome came out nicely! Now I don't think we'd need to use the oil based stuff, but I think I'd like to use some sort of sealing paint just to be on the safe side-- it's not flooded in the 10 years the house as been built and has good drainage, but there's a first time for everything, and after being empty over a year it does smell a bit musty, hard to tell if it's from it being wet or empty or both... I also really liked their idea of painting the cement floor vs paying for flooring... now eventually, I'd like tile in this basement, but we're talking about starting to finish this basement within 6 mo to 1 year, and I don't see ceramic tile being in the budget... Here is what is in the budget so far:


  • Hubby wants to finish the room that was started for a workshop (which we will do with the cheaper option of paneling or sheet rock-- anyone know the answer here?) It already has tile floor... but they stopped one of the side walls a few feet short of the cinder block wall on one side (where the electrical panel is located) and Adam would like it to go all the way across...

  • Finishing the duct work-- they will heat and cool, but one of them is hanging kinda funky and needs to be tacked back up properly.
  • Painting the ceiling-- now this was one thing we decided to cheap out on for two reasons-- didn't want to pay extra to sheet rock the ceiling, and then there was the fact that our ceiling is low enough and it'd take a lot of money & effort to nicely close in all the pipes-- which we'd like it to be easy to get to in the event of a pluming issue.
  • Of course: the walls. But still the question of "how to?" We definately want them to brighten up the space!
  • The floor, again "how to?" I liked their idea of painting the floor- and I've seen where people have done "paint tiles" on cement floors-- the question is do I have the ability and/or patience for such a task? :-)
  • We'd like to close in the washer, dryer, & hot water heater at the other end into a little "utility closet."
  • The large space in the center we'd like to make into an entertainment/guest area. This Christmas hubby wants a new flat screen TV, and we'd put the old entertainment center w/ the old tube TV, vcr/dvd player, & old surround sound speakers downstairs- everything still works, he just wants BIGGER. I'd like to add a nice futon for seating & also additional guest sleeping quarters, and toss in a couple recliners that at least 1/2 way match.
  • We'd also like to do a wet bar w/ sink & mini fridge, pool table/air hockey table, & a gaming system for the "big kids"-- hubby & friends (xbox 360 more than likely!) We also have the kid's VTech learning game system that will go down there... I got some good inspiration for the wetbar from this blog. And of course, we have our old kitchen bar that is no longer in use that we could use as a cheapout, quick fix until we can afford to build something fancy... Now it's just a question of location, location, location...

1 comment:

  1. All well thought up...you definitely need to work on the basement to make it usable livable and probably healthy and hygienic.

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