Finished Basement!

I don't think I ever actually blogged about the fact that we finally finished the basement. This process started way back in Sept 2021 with us refinancing the house in order to get money out to actually make this dream come true. Our reasoning behind finishing the basement was three-fold. 1. To provide a place for our children to live when they want to "move out", but maybe can't afford to do so. 2. To provide a place for some of our church missionaries to stay when they come to WA. 3. To eventually down the road be a possible way for us to make income through a short or long term rental. 

This is what the basement looked like before any work started. The only thing I had done was move out most of the junk that we stored in here. See the black tarping on the ground on the right. That was covering dirt....our house was literally built on these huge mounds of dirt. So our contractor had to jack hammer out all that dirt, shore up our house and build new footings. 

Here's what it looked like when the dirt was removed and the new supports were in place. 

When the water pipe broke in our master bathroom in January 2024 all the water flowed down through our vents and then came out down here. Thankfully we had had delay after delay in getting this project going so it was still just dirt! Praise Jesus for unanswered prayers. If I had had it my way this basement would have already been done and then the amount of damage from the water pipe would have been even worse! 

The restoration company did have to throw out all the yucky installation since it had gotten all wet. So that meant that we had the fun job of putting new stuff in. We could have hired our contractor to do this, but we like to save a buck here and there. 

Our next big hurtle was getting all the sewer stuff done and then finally pouring concrete and then framing in the walls. The basement is a studio so the main space is just one big huge room. You can see in the middle on the right are the stairs that lead up to our kitchen. 

After Michael finished all the plumbing and electrical it was time to drywall! This was such an exciting place to be even though I hate drywall with every fiber of my being. It was so nice to see the space take shape! 

So many hours and hours of work have been put into our house by this amazing man of mine! 

Next up was paint and flooring. Oh my goodness I could see the finish line! 

This what it looks like now! This is the view of that same side from the very first picture on this post. It's so crazy to see how far it's come! It's unrecognizable! 

The most fun and most stressful part of the whole process for me was shopping for the kitchen cabinets. I knew I wanted to have navy cabinets and they looks so good! I did mess up on one cabinet so we had to order another one, but I think we are able to use the one I ordered incorrectly in the laundry closet so it's not really a big deal! 

Since Ga-Ga & Pa moved out of their big house and into a condo they didn't need all their furniture so they gave us the pub table from their breakfast nook. It fits perfectly in the space. They also gave us there super comfy loveseat which works great for the living room. 

Since this is a studio I knew I wanted there to be some sort of separation from the main living area and the bedroom. I was thinking of having Michael build a wall unit, but that man has been through enough so I decided to buy one and then he just had to modify it a bit! I'm so sweet that way! I got this unit on Wayfair. Owen and I built it together. It has a top pieces that goes across, but it's meant to be mounted to wall.

Michael had to build a center piece anyway so you couldn't see through to the bedroom. Justine came up with a really great idea of having the TV swivel so you could watch it from the living room or from the bedroom. It was genius! 

Of course Michael made it happen! 

Here's what the living room looks like! 

Here's what the TV looks like when you swivel it around. One Sunday in February I wasn't feeling the greatest so I stayed home from church and I was able to watch church from the comfort of my bed. It was so cool! That's literally the only time I've even used the TV down here. 

At the end of January, Michael and I moved out of our master bedroom since we will be tackling the master bedroom/bathroom next. Our old furniture will be staying down here since I'm getting all new furniture! 

We also moved some of our old closet units down to the closet. Since this space is significantly smaller than were used to we had to put a lot of our clothes in bins. Right now there are 6 bins of clothes in the garage. It works just fine though since we should only be living down here for a few months. 

Here's the cute bathroom. I love this bathroom so much...it's the only bathroom in the house that doesn't have a window, but it's just so cute it makes me so happy!

 

We put the same shower unit in the basement that we did in the kids' shower upstairs. It's been really nice! 

The only thing we have yet to finish in the basement is the laundry closet...it's finished we just haven't bought a washer/dryer combo yet. It's actually been fun living in the basement and using all the stuff that we worked so hard for. It's like we've been taking it for a test drive. Our plan is to be moved back into our completely remodeled master bedroom by the end of June. In all honestly it might be nice to stay in the basement for the summer since it will be much cooler than being on the top floor, but I know I'm going to want to enjoy my new bedroom and bathroom too much to do that.