We're finished with our end of the year basement redo project. Here's a whole slew of before and after photos of the project. We are so happy with how things turned out and have been spending lots of time in the basement relaxing in the spruced up space.

We have been wanting to update the basement for a while now and finally took the plunge and finished it all within the span of one week. Our main expenses for the update were fabric for wall panels, paint (10 gallons for the whole basement!) and high tech light switches and bulbs (to reduce buzzing noises). We had everything else on hand or was donated from friends and family.

The Laundry "Room"

Here's the laundry room side of the basement. The biggest eye sore of the basement was this nasty wall cupboard. I have no idea what it is supposed to be used for, but we store paint and painting supplies, toilet paper and paper towel and our Christmas tree in it. We painted everything on this side of the basement white (including the massively heavy utility sink).

The TV "Room"

 Here is our TV room area. It houses our massive sectional that has to have been our #1 regretted purchase ever. It is good for neither form nor function. You'd think it would be a really comfortable place to relax, but after about 15 minutes on this thing, it starts creating backaches and is so uncomfortable. We're going to be house-sitting a couch and chair this year, so we're selling this sectional on Craigslist soon.

We took down the crappy posters that have fallen off the wall one too many times and we knocked the window surrounds off.

Jon updated our electrical...now instead of turning on a surge protector to turn on our paper lanterns, we can use this high tech dimmer switch to adjust lighting. And, the switch is now installed on the stairway down to the basement, so we don't trip around in the dark while trying to find the switch. Jon also added another circuit breaker and four outlet electrical outlet to the tv area.

The nastiest part of the whole project was painting the basement ceiling. We covered everything in plastic.

Jon used Kilz to prime the ceiling with a spray gun painter.

And then he applied two coats of black paint to mask all of the duct work and joists. It sure beats the patchwork paint colors on the ceiling, doesn't it?

Jon installed real canister lights instead of plug in paper lanterns. Now we have a real light switch instead of a serge protector attached to the ceiling.

We finished off the tv area by painting all of the walls a light tan color. The birch tree artwork is a shower curtain from Urban Outfitters stretched over canvas stretcher bars and stapled to the back.

 
I sewed 8 black fabric panels and we hung them from the joists in the ceiling with drapery rings. We hung the drapes throughout the basement to block off separate rooms.

We didn't want to spend too much money on this project, so I painted the bookshelf the same color as the wall to help it blend into things.

The Storage "Room"

We cleared out some of our stuff and covered the rest with black fabric panels. Now the litter box and our junk is behind the curtain and out of sight.

 
Now we don't have to look at our stuff while we're watching tv anymore. You can see the fabric panels behind the tv, to the right of the sitting area, lining the stairs and covering the storage area (in the background).

 
So, here's our "finished" basement. I think we will be refraining from house projects for at least another year after finishing all of this. I definitely don't want to paint anymore for quite a while.