Basement Update

This post has been a long time coming, and I’m so excited to share some progress with our basement! Our house has a pretty generous basement space, with a little over 600 sq. ft. It feels a lot bigger than that because it’s basically one large open L-shaped room. It also has a under-the-stairs closet, a small half bath, a water meter closet, and a utility room.

The previous owner was a single guy, so he definitely made the basement his little man-cave/bachelor hangout zone. He had a sports bar set up with the wet bar and TV, and he also had a large pool table that took up half the basement.

This is our speculation, but just based on some material differences (different baseboards than upstairs, for example), we figured he hired out the finishing the basement after he moved in. Since this was his hangout zone, we don’t think he cared too much about it being the most aesthetic or comfortable. So when we got our hands on the space, we knew there were stuff we wanted to change. The layout worked great for us, and that was something we wanted to keep. We aren’t big pool people, but that area where he kept the pool table made sense for a home theater. The space where he had a table set up, we plan on putting in a long table and make this our game area.

Things always have to look worse before they get better, right? We knew we wanted to replace the carpet & the drop ceilings. A few months ago, Ian took on the demolition of the basement and demo’d all the carpet and drop ceiling. The carpet was stained in areas, and it wasn’t very soft underfoot. We ended up choosing the STAINMASTER Signature Framework carpet in Ivory Paper. It’s neutral enough to go with pretty much anything, yet has enough pigment to resist dirt and stains easily. We picked the cushiest pad they had, and luckily Lowe’s had a free install when we purchased the carpet. The old drop-ceiling was not properly installed and tethered, so there were major sagging points, especially where there was the old pool hall light. It’s also a 20-year old drop ceiling, so natural staining also occurred. We debated between doing another drop ceiling, drywall, or plank ceiling. Ultimately, we decided for the ease of access to electrical and plumbing, drop ceiling was probably still the best way to go. We chose this beautiful drop ceiling from Armstrong (Model 1205). The design is very cool because it drops a little lower than the suspension grid, making the grid look very intentional with the ceiling, as opposed to normal drop ceilings where the grid is completely flush with the ceiling.

So far, all we’ve done besides getting the carpet and drop ceiling installed is painting the entire basement. I went out of my comfort zone and ended up choosing a super dark color (which Ian was very happy about for his theater). We ended up choosing Greenblack by Sherwin Williams. It’s a very pretty, muted charcoal color with just a subtle hint of blue. I know, it’s confusing because the color said GREEN black, but it definitely reads more blue to me in our space.

We moved our sectional downstairs and set up the projector screen. There is still a lot we need to do, like we need to refinish the wet bar, the half bath, putting in all the baseboards, etc. But this is a good starting point and we’re so happy to enjoy movie nights down here!