My fiance and I moved into our first house in August 2008. The house was built in 1974, and we bought it from the original owners, so everything was in fairly decent shape. The basement was partially finished, with cement floors, wood paneling, and the old upstairs kitchen cabinets (a reno they did at some point) hung everywhere. The wood paneled half of the basement was insulated, but the laundry room side was not. The crawlspace was also only half insulated – I’m not sure why.

Before:

I started by ripping everything out, right down to the cement walls, and then re-framed the whole basement.

I also added a bathroom, including doing the rough-in to the sewer line (I hired a pro to do the tie-in).

I also replaced the three basement windows, had the electrical panel upgraded from fuses to breakers, installed a sub-floor, added several new circuits and wiring, had closed-cell spray insulation installed, did the framing and drywall (though I did end up paying a pro to finish mudding).

Then new ceiling, lights, paint, flooring (laminate in laundry/bath, and had the pro’s do carpet elsewhere), plumbing fixtures and cabinets, doors, trim, media wiring, and just like that…

…I have a new basement.

After:

If you want to follow along and see details of this project along the way, check out the list of all the renovation posts.

Be sure to check out the One Project Closer blog, which regularly has some great articles on DIY projects, as well as their annual Before & After contest.

So of course it’s been a long time since I posted, but I figured I’d finally put up the pictures of the completed basement. Even these are now a few months old, but all that’s really changed is my desk isn’t quite as neat. All in all, it’s worked out great, and we spend a good deal of time here. With just the two of us living here, it’s very functional as an office / TV room. Our cat also spends a lot of time sleeping on the couch, sitting in the windows, or otherwise running around causing mayhem.

The laundry room is also quite functional, and provides enough space to dry clothes, have a few laundry baskets, and still have lots of room to move around.

Update: Before/after pics.

So as usual I’m a bit behind blogging, but a couple weeks ago I finally had the carpet installed. This is pretty much the end of the construction phase.

The carpet was one of the few things I was wise enough not to do myself, so I don’t have a ton of pictures of the progress (also I was on a conference call most of the morning while it was being put in). Here’s the underpad installed, ready for the carpet.

It’s very nice to finally have this part done. It’s been a long time coming. We moved in last August, and I started ripping stuff out pretty much right away. So total time taken: about 15 months. Now, to put it in perspective, this was entirely done on nights and weekends, and like any project like this there were weekends where I was away and other weeks where I just got nothing done. I also wasted about 3 months slowly starting to do some of the drywall mudding and taping, before finally wising up and paying a pro to do it.

I will follow up with some before/after photos. I’m also going to try and document some of the other things I’m doing related to the basement (though not directly renovation), like my scene-capable lighting and networked media system. Also, although the renovation part of this blog is probably going to be quiet for a while, I do have some more major reno projects planned for next year, so stay tuned.