Posts Tagged ‘basement’

Basement Inspiration

7 Comments

Posted by Rebecca, April 14th, 2011

Since Mike has finally introduced the basement, I figured I’d show you a little of our plans for it. We just started to actually have a clue of what we want it to be (other than AWESOME). It started with this floorplan.

Mike doodled this one Saturday night when we were out to eat. I carry around a little pocket sized notebook to jot down blog ideas and whatnot. So when I wasn’t understanding Mike’s idea, he drew this.

I often say how I completely trust Mike’s ideas and well, his sense of style. I would seriously trust him to go to the mall and pick out an outfit for me right this second. I don’t take his suggestions lightly, in fact, I take most of his suggestions very seriously. Though when the situation is reversed, I usually have to talk him into things 🙂

So Mike came up with this floor plan that I probably wouldn’t have thought of and now I had basement on the brain. Sometimes it just takes that one little aspect to come together to finally be able to visualize a space that you have been completely idealess about. Since most of my inspiration comes from HGTV, it’s no surprise that the Dream Home episode brought about another revelation.

Light walls and light floors. Two different concepts for me 🙂

I am also in love with the open shelving in this mini-kitchen/bar area.

All Mike and I really knew about the basement, besides what we wanted to use it for, was that we didn’t want it to look like a basement. I also don’t want it to be dark (besides our theater area). We’re fortunate to have large windows and high ceilings throughout most of our basement and I don’t want to ruin that. The light floor concept came into play when we decided that we’d like to move our litter boxes down there. We use the all-natural (and wonderful!) Feline Pine litter. It is literally finely ground wood chips, which cause me to vacuum our current dark floors at least once a day. It’s very light in weight, and color, and tracks everywhere. It is still much better than that clay stuff that got dust on my floors, in my lungs and stunk horribly! ps- did you know that clay litter supposedly has carcinogens in it? No bueno.

Back to the basement! This week, while we are on a basement kick, Mike sent me a link to none other than HGTV.com and a gallery of basements by Candice Olson. Can this woman ever do wrong? Every time she does a room, even if I hate the color and the furniture, it looks wonderful. Her basements are no exception, so here’s some eye candy.

They are all completely different but share that put togetherness. They all have classy elements (light fixtures, curtains, built-ins, french doors) that most people wouldn’t bother putting in a basement. We don’t have an exact plan yet, since we’re nowhere near ready to start this project, but we know that we want a similar vibe. We have dreams of french doors, bookcases, back splashes and open shelving. And once we put the pool table in place on Saturday? It was another turning point in the visualization of the basement. Finally, something that will be staying down there, that we can physically walk around and get a feel of the size of the space.

But for now, we’ll just keep dreaming up ideas.

The Basement

4 Comments

Posted by Michael, April 11th, 2011

We haven’t really shown the basement since it is completely unfinished.  We only use it for storage.  However, we did have a nice delivery made on Saturday which happened to make the basement its new home!  But still, the basement remains dark and cold.  We do have plans to one day finish it; I’d say in the next 12 months we’ll start this basement project.

Until then, here are some pictures for everyone to get an idea of what we’re working with!

Here is the view coming down the basement stairs.  Nothing special as you can either go left or go right.  If you go right, you’ll hit mainly our ‘utility’ room with our hot water heater and the like.  We plan on making a portion of this space into a half bathroom.  For our tour, we’ll go left down the stairs.

And this is the view as soon as you turn left.  A decent sized area we hope to close-in with some french doors.  We have an english basement which allows us to have relatively big windows which means plenty of light in this thing.

A better view of those windows!

Here is the view looking down the basement — really really long. This picture doesn’t really do any justice.

And here is the same view just looking back the other way.  On your right hand side, you can just barely see the hot water heater around the corner; this area will eventually be the half bathroom and unfinished storage space.

You’re looking at the space that will become The Theater.

Since this ‘cove’ doesn’t have windows (and thus naturally dark), it’s only fitting that this area become a theater.  I haven’t decided if I’ll go LCD/LED/Plasma or go all out with a projector.  But either way, we’re really looking forward to this area.  We hope to do a nice sectional couch and some other unique seating options.

Oh, hey, look… stunt photoshop walls and screen.  I couldn’t resist.  Unfortunately, we’ll have to put a small door towards the right of the screen for access to the sump pump.  Not looking forward to it.

And that is all I have for everyone!  A totally unfinished basement, ta-da!

Oh wait!  There’s more… If you haven’t already figured it out, we received a free pool table over the weekend courtesy of some friends of the family.

No, guys… that doesn’t mean it fell off the back of a truck.  I promise.

All we had to do was pay someone to move it about 50 miles for us!  Totally stoked to put a ping pong table on top of this bad boy, too!  We hope to eventually re-finish the wood, maybe a darker stain, and put on some new felt.  It is going to be a great addition to the basement — as long as Macky doesn’t shred the thing to pieces.

The 100th post!

16 Comments

Posted by Rebecca, January 13th, 2011

Today is a milestone for my little bloggy, this is my 100th post! Cue the balloon drop! Okay I don’t have a balloon drop, but I do have this video I found of the parade through the Magic Kingdom in Disney…

YouTube Preview Image

This song has been in our heads for a week. Though I didn’t know the words were “Celebrate a dream come true” and I normally just run around singing “Celebrate da datty doooo”. I also perform the arm waving dance, which I did once while entering the Magic Kingdom and my beloved iPhone took a flying leap out of my pocket and onto the concrete. Mike told me this was a sign from God to never do that dance in public again. Luckily I can still bust it out in the house!

It took me about 4 months (of actual “serious” blogging) to get to this point. So I figured I’d set out some goals to accomplish by my next milestones. A list, shall we?

By my 200th post:

(via)

I would like to have painted another room in this house. Whether it’s the office, powder room or master, within another 4 months I hope to have told you about some new color on our walls!

By my 300th post:

(via)

We have been wanting to add some lighting to our landscaping since our yard is ridiculously dark at night. I would also like to change out some of our builder given landscaping with maybe some more hydrangeas. That is, if the two I planted last summer come back to life!

By my 400th post:

(via)

I would love to have our master bedroom completely (or almost completely) finished and made-over. I don’t necessarily want it to look like this one, I just picked a dreamy looking one 🙂

By my 500th post:

(via)

A nice finished basement with a pimped out theater area. Mike can go crazy with all of his speakers and wires and whatnot, and I can get a couch with cup holders in it without feeling like I’m breaking a design rule…

By my 1,000th post:

(via)

We’ve been dreaming up a nice backyard area for ages and well, this one wouldn’t be so shabby! We’re not sure if we want to do a deck, patio or combination type thing, so this project isn’t a big priority. Once we feel like we need an outdoor entertaining space we’ll look into it a little bit more!

By my 1,500th post:

(via)

If you’ve done the math at this point, you’d know this one is very far down the line, but I hope to be able to add a nursery to my resume in a few years. I love browsing nurseries, they are just so fun and imaginative. This one is one of Young House Love’s great nursery crashes on Baby Center. Oh and with a nursery of course comes a spin-off blog 🙂 You think that I’d dedicate a blog to my cats and house but not dedicate one to my future kids?

Hopefully I’ll keep up with some of these goals, at least the ones within the next year or so. It will be interesting to see how many posts it takes me to actually finish and post about each thing! Now I’m off to celebrate a dream come true by watching a new episode of Jersey Shore!!

Copyright 2010 - 2011. The Lil House That Could. All rights reserved.