It's been nearly a year since we picked up sticks and moved into our new home. We have been so thrilled with this space-with it's size, it's newness, it's property. We feel very fortunate to have landed here, especially when houses are selling like hotcakes, and often for inflated prices.
When we toured the house initially, we knew that with the kids still at home at least sometimes, three small bedrooms would not be enough. But because this house came with a large unfinished basement, that is where we planned to nearly double our living space.
With a lot of help from Chad's older brother, who is skilled at all things construction, we plotted out space for a bedroom, full bathroom, storage room, and enclosing the furnace, water heater, etc.
This is what we started with:
Framing, subflooring, electrical, and plumbing happened first, and were some of the quickest work.
Were we do do anything differently, we would probably have enlarged the bedroom and bath. They are both adequate, especially as they will become guest spaces, but we underestimated how large we wanted them to be.
Hanging drywall was a new and fun challenge that poor Chad spent months of every spare moment working on. Truly a miserable experience and one we plan never to repeat.
We did about 80% of the work, but used contractors for a few electrical and plumbing bits, as well as hiring pros to mud and finish the drywall and texture the ceiling. Not something we wanted to tackle with no experience.
Ready for the result?
I wanted a simple, neutral pallette down here, and wanted as much brightness as I could get in a space with no natural light. With plenty of recessed lights and bright white paint, we achieved it. The black media wall was my idea and I love how it turned out.
For those who are curious, the flooring is from Lumber Liquidators, most of the construction materials are from Home Depot, and the sectional is from Big Lots-and we adore it.
Those of you who've known me for years know that I like autographs. We brought this door from The Duff House basement and it is our guest book.
I don't have photos of the bedroom, but I can show you the bath.
The vanity reads green in these photos, but it is actually a true gray, so it does go with the shower curtain. The flooring is from Wayfair, the lights and fixtures were found on Ebay, and the toilet and vanity are from Home Depot. The mirror was thrifted.
As with most decorating projects, there are still small bits and pieces to add as I find them, but we love this space and it pretty much makes the house for us.
Next project? Painting the entire upstairs so that I can finally hang stuff on my walls.
