Makeover

The internet is back on. Praises be.

I was hanging out in the basement this morning and realized that it's Sept 15, which means that a year ago, we started the major remodel on the basement. Prior to the remodel, you wouldn't have caught me "hanging out" in the basement. I have photos of the before, the process of, and the finished product (though the finished photos are somewhat old and don't show that we've actually decorated a little and added doorknobs, etc). The before photos don't really do justice to how icky it was downstairs. The photos make it look light and bright, not gloomy and damp and cold, which is the truth of what it was. 2 dirty lights in the dingy ceiling, 2 tiny windows that were dirty as can be, freezing cold and damp year round, a big room with no definition to it, one awkward closet that had no light and was triangular shaped (making it impossible to put anything large in it, as things got stuck in the tight angles of the shelves), ugly tile floor, loud creaky stairs, ugly things along the staircase, bugs everywhere. All in all, it was screaming for a makeover. My father-in-law is an architect and drew up fantastic plans for the basement, though I did have moments when I wondered how we were going to fit a family room, office, and bathroom all in this one space. Our friend Kevin was our unofficial contractor and did a huge amt of the work, as did our friend Justin.

So, the "before" photos...

You can faintly see in this photo that there are blue tape marks back by the triangle closet...that's where the bathroom and office were laid out. At the time, I couldn't imagine that those were ever going to be large enough to accommodate people.


The stairs. Yikes.

Kevin dug the hole for the egress window a year ago today. That was the official start of the remodel.

Within 2 hrs, GCNP and Kevin had this hole ready to go.

Here are some "during" photos...this process took from Sept to March...mostly because of money and time constraints for us.

Digging out the floor for the plumbing...if we'd had cats, they would have been the happiest felines ever, given that there was a giant sandbox in our basement.

And finally, the nearly finished project as it was in April, when we scrambled to get things done in time for a surprise party for GCNP's 30th birthday...

The family room

Bathroom
Shower

More of the family room...aren't the stairs a HUGE improvement??
GCNP's office, which we call the Hubby Cubby, as it's 7x7.

We'll be paying this all off for a long time, but it was worth it.