Finishing the basement

Today I'd like to share with you our basement finishing project.  We started it this past Fall and have to say it really came out so much better than I thought.  My handy hubby did all the work himself.  We really started with a bare shell.  Here's a look at what it looked like in the beginning:

And really, that's being kind.  Since we live in a colonial style home, the basement space is limited, to say the least.  This section will become the living area.

My favorite decision was to go with this Koa flooring, Lumber Liquidators, they really do have the best price!

I won't bore you with all the step by step construction details, let's just get to the fun part - decorating!

Here's the dining area.  I found the coolest bar stools at Home Goods.  They are very industrial and weathered looking.  They were my jumping off point for color and design.

I love, love, love my shaggy white rugs - also from Home Goods.  They are so fluffy they've been know to eat Legos.

 Here's another Home Goods find (can you tell where I spend too much time?)  I had the mirror already, just refinished it.  It used to be black.

My idea was to juxtapose old and new.  I mixed some shiny contemporary pieces and mixed them in with 120 year old barn wood.

 We love how you can see the animal gnaw marks on the wood.

 The window is framed in barn wood and the window treatment is a silk yellow and soft green flat fold roman shade(my biggest splurge).

 These boxes I was lucky enough to get from my mom's house.  The top one is actually a food canteen from WWI.

 In the world of people painting furniture, here's an example of something I did for my mom a few years ago.  We had this old ice box in my parents garage for as long as I can remember.  I took it home and refinished it for her as a Mother's Day gift one year.  Sometimes natural wood is beautiful too!  She left it to me when she passed <3.  For more on this story click here.

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 This sleek electric fireplace keeps the basement feeling toasty. Actually, it is pretty comfortable on it's own, but on those cold winter nights you sometimes just want to be extra cozy My husband fought me on this one, but now he uses it more than me!

 We decided to keep it light and open in the kitchen area.  My husband made these shelves out of the barn wood and Ikea brackets.  A determined search landed us with this fantastic 9 foot piece of granite as a remnant - saving us BIG time $$$!

 And here is our finished room.  The walls are Benjamin Moore Westminster Gold and Galvaston

Grey for accent. The wall with the TV has a layer of silver glaze over the grey, making it a little 

shiny.  Looks fantastic with the lamps.  We still have some small touches to finish, but overall it's 

done.  The staircase was another project that we finished.  Check them out HERE.

Can you guess how much we spent to do all this????

Everything from the studs to installation, to the flooring to the granite counters, to the rugs and 

sectional, everything, everything was right around $6,500!  I think that a really great number! 

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