Transforming the Dungeon

Our basement has undergone a few minor transformations since we have lived here but it still felt like a dungeon to me! Probably because we have only ever used it for storage! BUT with the baby on the way we wanted to make it a second living room so we would have a place for all of her toys in the future.

This is what the basement looked like when we first bought the house... it literally was a dungeon! Gotta love the astro turf carpeting and blacked out window!!

The first part of our transformation was done 3 years ago where we painted the wood panelling a nice cream and ripped up the astro turf and put small blue area rugs on the floor for the mean time. This worked for a bit but then as the renovations upstairs continued and the furniture was collected we slowly had WAY too much furniture and it somehow all ended up in the basement!!

Then after accumulating some couches and too much furniture I stupidly let Ryan do what he wanted in the basement... which transformed the basement into a disaster as he hung ALL of his framed photos on the wall (in no particular order...) We also have one too many couches down there but the one in the picture below will be gone soon enough and I plan that space to be play area for the baby. We will have a play kitchen set there that was mine when I was kid!

This is our new fireplace that I mentioned before! And do you see the new carpeting? My parents ripped up the carpet in their house that was still in good condition and we took it. It is NOT installed yet.. just laid down so we could keep our toes warm. We didn't want to install it while we were doing the basement bathroom!

This is the other side of the basement... gotta love that fake brick wall. Originally we never painted it... I have no idea why... I think I thought you couldn't paint it. Not sure what my reasoning was but the new plan was to paint it and make it brighter. (Notice the 2 random placements on the Elvis pictures on the wall... yes that was Ryan!! )

To the right is the laundry area and to the left is the rest of the basement and the door to the basement bathroom.

This is the rest of our basement, as you can see more fake brick! And our wood burning stove which is currently disconnected because the pipe disintegrated!! AHHH.

This is the stained glass window that came with the house... somehow the wood panelling around the stained glass never was painted... I wasn't supervising the painting process!!!

Now while most people who get a week off decide to relax all week... I on the other hand decided it was the perfect opportunity to paint the fake brick wall!!! I pulled out my primer and took a stab at the brick wall behind the couch. This was halfway through the first coat of primer, I still had to get in the cracks with a brush. Even with just primer it looks SOOO much better!!!!

By the time I finished priming one coat of paint on the brick wall I was pretty exhausted BUT I had a little bit of paint left in my tray so I decided to prime the wood paneling around the stained glass. Doesn't it look SO MUCH BETTER already! It brightens it all up!!!

Now that was just the first coat of primer... it takes a lot longer to paint things when you are pregnant... OH and yes I know they say you shouldn't paint when pregnant... but honestly I don't care. I wasn't down there long enough to inhale a bunch of the fumes. The plan today is to hopefully do the second coat of primer and then a coat of paint!! We'll see.. its possible if Ryan helps out! Plus we still have the brick wall behind the fireplace that needs painting... I didn't have the energy to get to it yesterday!