It’s been awhile since we’ve seen this view. This is a screen capture of some GoPro footage I took back in 2017 when we started renovating our basement. It’s crazy to look back and see just how far we have come, especially when I feel like we haven’t made any progress at all. I also have to remember that we’re tackling our basement 100% on our own time and budget, so I need my internal expectations to line up with that. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that until you look back and see photos like this. We have come SO far, and you know what we HAVE accomplished SO much in a two year span. Giving ourselves a virtual pat on the back for this.

This past week we’ve gone hardcore on the basement. We have big dreams for this space this year, and hope to make it a livable space within the next 6 months. If you follow us on Instagram, then you probably saw that our latest update was that we were painting our stairs (check out our saved highlights for more behind the scenes). This was definitely NOT on my radar for this basement. I personally feel like painted stairs give off such a farmhouse vibe when it comes to design, however to accommodate our budget we decided to live with the painted stairs until we saved up for exactly what we want. We didn’t want to go into debt over our stairs, and if we want the 6 month livable space plan to come into fruition, we have to cut costs in a few places. It is what it is, people.

While drywall has been in place for awhile now, it’s a daunting, daunting task. I just feel like there are people that LOVE drywall, and people that never want to sand another mud line for the rest of their life. Can you guess which ones we are?? We contemplated hiring out the drywall, but again sucking up the labor to avoid the cost of labor. Yah dig? It’s definitely not our favorite project to tackle, but necessary to have a cohesive and finished look.

So far the basement renovation has been relatively simple in regards to everything going as smoothly as it could go. We had a mitigation system put in to combat our high radon levels in the basement. If you’ve never heard of Radon, I highly recommend reading this post to see if it might be impacting your home. The system has worked perfectly, and definitely puts our minds at ease. Some people believe in Radon being a real thing, and some people think it’s a hoax. Regardless if it’s actually harmful to our bodies our not, we opted to put in the system for peace of mind. It can’t hurt, right?

• We waterproofed the entire cinder block basement using this.

• Installed these insulation boards on every wall.

• Studded walls to create different rooms/spaces in the basement.

• Redirected and rewired almost all of the electrical, including added recessed lights in each room.

Just to name a few.

Now for some updated photos, including some fun side by sides for progression examples.

We have an almost completely formed hallway, guys!!

These stairs guys. They have been such a pain. They’ve been in an unfinished basement for 50+ years. I originally sanded them all the way down multiple times in hopes of leaving them bare, however they had SO many imperfections, were cracked, split, had a significant gap, and just honestly never meant to be refinished. However, like I stated above, we are living with these painted stairs until we save up to replace them with our dream staircase. As you can see we have really low ceilings in our basement, so they’re definitely not “code” and they never will be solely because of how they built houses back then. If you’re tall, you’ll have to duck before making it all the way down the stairs!

I want to say the stairs and drywall are tied for the biggest visual transformation so far.

We opted to square off our load bearing support beams to give them a more modern and minimal look. We have big plans for the sides of the stairs and storage that we’r’e excited to share with you guys as things progress.

I can’t even tell you guys how excited I’ve been to add trim work. Even though we haven’t installed flooring yet, it adds SO much to the space and makes me feel more content. We will be adding additional trim to the baseboards after flooring installation. This is a builders grade door for now, we plan on sprucing it up a bit in the future, including new hardware.

Finally here are two of my favorite views…

That’s a wrap for this basement renovation update. I hope you guys enjoyed looking at these before and after photos! We obviously have a few more things on our basement to-do list. We are finishing it in smaller sections now, while before we were trying to do too much in so many areas that it was overwhelming.

Since we’re obviously focusing on the stairs/hallway here’s a list of what’s left to do:

• Configure and build storage under the stairs

• Install wood feature on stairs

• Finishing caulking/painting trim and walls

• Move the return ducts from the hallway (The HVAC has hands down been the most complicated part of this entire renovation. Our unit is in our basement and we have extremely low ceilings, making it so difficult. We have a few solutions we’re looking into and will share as we go!)

• Install flooring

• Install ceilings

Last night we started working on our home gym room. We put together our new workout equipment and are so excited to work out together!! Would you guys be interested in seeing more of that room as we complete it?

Thanks so much for stopping by and checking out our basement renovation update! If you’d like to read more basement posts click HERE, HERE & HERE!