Our Basement Renovation Plans

On to a new project! I'm so excited to tell you our plans for our basement renovation. By renovation, I actually mean we're finishing our basement! We bought the house with it partially unfinished, but it has a good start. It's a HUGE amount of space (about 1000 square feet including the storage / maintenance closet, bathroom, living area and laundry area) but about 750 of it will be open living space. This is a huge upgrade for us, since our main level is only 1400 square feet. While we're not adding any bedrooms down here (there are no windows, so adding a room wouldn't count as a bedroom), we ARE doing the following.

THE GAME PLAN
+ framing in the laundry area to create a laundry room with a barn door (though it won't look rustic)+ fixing some aspects to the bathroom (flooring, adding mirror, fixing light, etc.)+ carpeting the main living space+ adding a bar with a sink, mini fridge and possibly an additional actual bar area with 2 stools. + adding flooring under the kitchen / bar area. + changing the placement of the electrical in the ceiling. There are barely any lights down there now, so McCann is redoing it all and adding about 8 can lights so we make sure it's nice and bright, since there are no windows.+ fresh, light paint throughout and paint the ceilings black in order for the exposed beams to count as a ceiling (this is accepted by appraisers in our state). This will also make the ceiling stuff "disappear" to the eye and hopefully make the ceiling look taller. I know it won't be my favorite, but it'll be an improvement from what we have now ;)
All of this will be done on an extremely tight budget and almost all the labor will be done ourselves (I'll my hubby as much as I can!) The only thing we may have to call the pros in on is carpet installation and mudding the new dry wall for the laundry room.
LET'S WALK THROUGH THE SPACE
When you come down the stairs, this is the view you see. It's a super open, quite large space for us to envision! I'm thankful that there's really nothing down here so we can make it our own. 

The door on the left goes to the finished (yay!) bathroom. Other than fixing the floors and adding a couple can lights and accessories, it's done. To the right of that, the wall goes back a bit creating the perfect nook for the TV. A sofa will face that wall with the TV to sort of divide the basement into "zones". 

To the left of the bathroom door is where there is plumbing for a sink, so that means we will add a wall of cabinets (lowers only) right there and get a sink and mini drink fridge. In the other open area will be the office zone, because my husband will eventually move his office set up down here. Remember, this will all be carpeted so it'll feel a lot cozier.

This is where the most change is happening. We taped out our laundry area for you to see where we'll be framing the laundry room in. We're going to do a folding counter on the far right where the trash can is in this picture. A sliding door will be centered on the laundry room wall and I'm thinking we'll paint it a fun, bold color. 

INSPIRATION:

We can't wait to get started and take you along for the ride. McCann has already almost finished the ceiling electrical!

If you've redone or finished a basement, I'd love your input!

xoxo

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