Basement Overhaul, Part 1.
Once the living room, main bedroom and office were painted, tackling the family room in the basement became a top priority. We wanted to keep our living room as a tidy, entertaining space, so we decided to turn the basement into our TV-watching/lounging area. And it was one of the more outdated places in the house, so would be a good place to invest some money and sweat equity too. Just as a reminder, here's the lovely before:
We held off on doing anything right away and lived with the room as it was. That way, we not only ruled out making structural changes (we'd though initially about moving some walls around but found it wasn't necessary), but also were confident that the basement was nice and dry. The only thing we really wanted to improve on was how cold the floor was underfoot. Oh, and the visual impact of that brick! This is really not the most modern look out there:
First things first, that lovely carpet had to go. It was an instant improvement! The carpet had been laid right on the concrete floor, which explained why it was so cold in the winter. We're going to put in a better subfloor before laying laminate (more to follow). Before we got to flooring though, we painted everything. The ceiling tiles were grey, the walls were yellow, and everything was just dingy. After priming and painting everything, the transformation was well on its way.
A word of caution - painting brick is an amazing transformation. Just know that it will take a lot of time and paint. This brick surround took an entire gallon of primer and about 7 hours... and that's just for one coat! It took another two coats of grey paint to actually cover it. I really started to hate this project part way through, but it was so worth doing.
We held off on doing anything right away and lived with the room as it was. That way, we not only ruled out making structural changes (we'd though initially about moving some walls around but found it wasn't necessary), but also were confident that the basement was nice and dry. The only thing we really wanted to improve on was how cold the floor was underfoot. Oh, and the visual impact of that brick! This is really not the most modern look out there:
First things first, that lovely carpet had to go. It was an instant improvement! The carpet had been laid right on the concrete floor, which explained why it was so cold in the winter. We're going to put in a better subfloor before laying laminate (more to follow). Before we got to flooring though, we painted everything. The ceiling tiles were grey, the walls were yellow, and everything was just dingy. After priming and painting everything, the transformation was well on its way.
A word of caution - painting brick is an amazing transformation. Just know that it will take a lot of time and paint. This brick surround took an entire gallon of primer and about 7 hours... and that's just for one coat! It took another two coats of grey paint to actually cover it. I really started to hate this project part way through, but it was so worth doing.
A glimpse of painting underway! Information about the flooring and updated basement family room pictures to follow :)
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