Basement Makeover
My home’s basement is partially finished, and it is a space I have neglected for years. This is where I send my kiddos when they are active in the house. Because of this, the boys have destroyed the ceiling tiles, caused gouges in the drywall, broken the covers on each of the light fixtures, and I cannot even count how many times someone has gotten hurt on the hard floor. When they broke the frame of the sofa, I decided it was time to give this space some attention!
Table of Contents
- Demolition
- Ceiling and Floor Work
- Painting
- Installing Carpeting, Doors, and Trim
- Adding DIY Artistic Touches
- DIY Shelf
- Cool New Additions to the Space
Basement Demolition
First, I am tackling demolition. The ceiling tiles were easy to pull down because they were just stapled to furring strips across the ceiling joists. I am wearing a respirator because there was a LOT of nastiness on top of these. I was extremely put off by the surprises I found above my ceiling tiles. The first was a cardboard box I found tucked above the wall’s top plate. Inside the box was a bunch of receivers and security equipment. I am pretty sure this is just junk, but you never know what it might have been used for. Why would someone hide them in the ceiling? I always try to repurpose or sell materials, but unfortunately, the ceiling tiles had to be thrown away. Luckily, I was able to sell the oak trim from the baseboards, door casing, and the ceiling edge cove moulding.
Ceiling and Floor Work
Next, I am taking down all of the furring strips to expose the joists. I have an idea for the ceiling that I think is going to look very industrial and cool. I want to leave the joists exposed to give the room more space. Open ceilings will result in some heat loss to the upstairs, more noise transfer, and maybe other things. This means that if I decide this exposed joists isn’t working out, I can always reinstall the furring strips and put up a ceiling again. At this point, someone had successfully shown up from my Facebook marketplace ad to take away the laminate flooring. They uninstalled it, and I did not have to lift a finger!
Unfortunately, that was not the case for the carpeted stairs. This carpet was installed with tack strips, a no-no for stair treads, so kids walking up and down in bare feet would sometimes get pricked! I am happy to say goodbye to this in favor of something that is higher quality and gets installed correctly.
Painting for my Basement Makeover
Now it is time to start prepping for paint. I spent a lot of time filling blemishes in the drywall, sanding them smooth, and wiping everything down. Everything is getting vacuumed from the concrete floor to the ceiling joists. The ceiling was definitely dirty, so after vacuuming, I wiped the rough-sawn lumber with a rag. These all have to be clean, so my paint job is successful!
The paint I am using is a color I mixed up from leftovers. I have so many paints in storage that I will not need for touch-ups, but there isn’t enough for a new project. So, by combining all of them, I can save them from the landfill and give them a new purpose.
You can combine paints of different sheens (most of mine are satin, some are flat), but you cannot combine different types, like oil with urethane alkyd. All of the paints I am mixing are latex-based. I am straining the paint through a tea towel, but I should have purchased an actual strainer for this because they are so cheap. This process removes chunks of latex, specks of rust from the old cans, and ensures my paint mixture will go through a sprayer. I added a gallon of new black paint to this mixture to give me enough of the color.
In total, I used 3.5 gallons of paint in my basement project because I am color-drenching. The dark color covered my ceiling joists, but it is also going on EVERY wall. The color-drenching trend has intimidated me for most spaces I design, but in this basement, I think it will be perfect.
Carpet, Door, and Trim Installation
Now that the painting is done, it is time for our new carpet to be installed. I am going with a super thick underlayment and 60 oz carpet for a luxurious and soft feel underfoot. It seems like the carpet raised the temperature in this basement by five degrees. I did have this carpet installed by a crew from Lowe’s and was SO impressed with their process!
Next, I am installing new doors for the space to lead to my cellar and utility room. Unfortunately, I ordered the wrong door. The handle is supposed to swing out towards the right, so the light switch makes sense. Because there is no space for the door to swing into the cellar, I have to flip the door and make it work. Updating doors and trim work really makes the whole space feel new, but this is the tedious part of the remodel. I opted for a minimalist trim painted white to match the rest of my house. I am installing the baseboards level and finding the studs so I know where to nail it.
DIY Ventilation Covers and Wall Art
There are a few spots in the basement that we need for piping ventilation to prevent freezing. I had the idea to cut an old wooden closet door with the louvered slats and add a piece of wood to the end to make it look like a vent. Then, I just painted these DIY vent covers to match the rest of the room so they blend in. As you can imagine, I have a lot of wood scraps in my garage workshop, and I have been wanting ot do a project with them to use them up. I started cutting them into squares to create wall art for this basement project.
How I Made my Wall Art
I set up a stop block on my miter saw to make repeated cuts of exactly the same measurement. When a scrap was too small to safely hold, I used a push stick so I did not get hurt. I used up all of my wood scraps and only had to cut into one sizable piece of plywood to get enough squares for my design. Each of these squares has a different thickness.
- 2x4s: 1 1/2 inches thick, 1 inch thick
- 1x4s: 3/4 inch thick
- Plywood: 1/2 inch thick
- Thinner plywood: 3/8 inch thick
This gives me 5 different levels where I could place my wood squares next to each other in random order to create visual interest. I am using glue to attach the wood squares to a thin piece of sheathing plywood. I did not clamp or nail; I just pushed them into the glue and let it cure overnight. When the glue is dry, I am staining my wood scrap masterpiece with a dark walnut stain that I think will bring some warm tones to my basement design. Then, when that was all dry, I attached a heavy-duty wire across the back and hung it from a wall stud. I chose a particularly ugly spot where the drywall seam was visible in an effort to hide it. This piece weighs about 30 lbs and is 2.5 feet wide by 4 feet long.
DIY Shelf for Behind the Sofa
Another DIY project I did to make my basement more functional is building a skinny shelf that goes behind the sofa. I purchased an 8ft long 1×8 board, primed it, and painted it black. I did the same thing with a shorter piece of 1×8 to cover the open side. Since this will all be hidden behind the sofa, it does not matter that I installed brackets that I do not like. My laser level kept everything lined up just right. Then, I am attaching the two boards together with pocket holes drilled on the backside of the shorter board and securing my shelf onto the brackets. I am making a custom cutout to fit my power strip! Now I have accessible electricity on the top of my skinny shelf! This will power my project, which sits up in the window well, in addition to my new speaker system.
New Additions to the Basement
This new basement has some super cool new additions. Of course, it got a new projector and sound system for movie nights, but some other special things also got added. One of the biggest hits for my kids is the foosball table! My 9-year-old Theo had one request for this space: LED lights, so of course, those are also a new feature. These can change colors and are music-activated to flash to the beat during dance parties. My personal favorite new addition is the modular couch. It is so comfortable and perfect for everything I need it for!
This project has been a long time coming, but I think it was so worth the wait!
