Our Basement is Done!

I can’t even believe it!  After 6 years of living with a dungeon for a basement, we finally got it finished and it is wonderful.  Here are the before and after pictures of the amazing transformation our basement has taken these last couple of months.  You will be amazed!!!

This is where we begin.  From our kitchen a door separates our warm cozy home from the creepy, cold dungeon. When you first open the door, you see a large storage closet (total waste of space. I wish I had taken a picture of the inside.) and broom closet. The descending stairs to the right.

  

The Second picture is what you see as you begin the journey down the stairs.  This next picture is a view of it from below coming back up.  You can see the first set of stairs from here.

Here is what it looks like now, same views in the same order…

Here is the next set of stairs. View going down and then coming back up.

The wall jetting out was taken back and the top two stairs widen. The landing there at the top was leveled and a new back door put on that didn’t scrape the floor and actually opens all the way now.

 

Now we are down the stairs and in the basement. This next picture shows the landing in the basement. There is an unfinished closet on the right.  (this closet used to be a shower. A very nasty shower.  You really have to wonder with these old houses sometimes)  You can see in the bottom right corner of the first picture the cement half wall.  The second picture is a shot of the unfinished closet.

 

 

The cement wall was taken back to the full wall and the wall next to the stairs was also taken back a bit.  The closet is now finished. 

 

Continuing into the actual basement.  here is the view from the landing. Notice the wires, pipes and duct work everywhere.

We got new duct work done and you can see a door to the new closet where the washing machine used to be. If you look closely on the bottom of the ‘before’ picture, you can see where the half wall used to be.

Now into the first room of our basement. There is a cement platform, of sorts, and there used to be a toilet in the corner.  We decided to make a second bathroom.  On the left of the big black pipe we put the bathroom and laundry closet. Our washer and dryer are now side by side instead of opposite sides of the room.  On the right of the big black pipe is the storage closet you see above.

 

Here is the bathroom and laundry closet.  We call the bathroom Bryce’s “manly bathroom”.

 

In this first room there was only one light for the whole room. The windows were busted out and had not been replaced since long before we owned the house.  The walls were cement with plaster on top.  The plaster was falling off.  No ceilings to hide duct work or wires and pipes.  There were two big sinks next to the freezer that we never used. There were no outlets so we powered the washer, dryer and freezer through extension cords that went up through the ceiling to the upstairs outlets. You can kind of see those.

New windows, new duct work, 2 lights plus the light in the bathroom and the laundry closet. And we have

outlets!!!

 

Now for room #2. I decided to put the before and after shots side by side for this room. It’s the same story with duct work, wires and no outlets. Plus this part of the house is a rock foundation so the walls were literally falling apart. The walls had to be patched to keep the rocks in. There was also this weird window deal where you could see the stairs and first closet through it.  On the other side of the room there was a wall that was half brick and half cement. It was also falling apart.  Our furnace is in this room as well, and we had a closet built around it.  This room also had only one light in the middle of the room. Now we have four. This will be our new entertainment room ( TV room).

 

  

  

Last room. This room was much like the second room. The rock walls had to be patched and there was another window looking into the laundry room (first room). The window to the outside had been broken out. This room housed our water heater and again a closet was built around it.  This room could be used as a small bedroom but we are still debating how to use it. It used to be our storage room, but we love it so much we want to use it for something else.

  

Well, that’s it.  Lots of pictures, but then again, lots of work.  Thank you Innovative Construction Remodeling for our lovely new basement.