Basement Before and After

March 5, 2013

The basement is mostly done, we just need to get a handrail in along the stairs and finish the door to the cupboard under the stairs.  Here are some before and after pictures...

This is just as you come down the stairs and look towards the back door of the basement.

We moved all of the mechanical things like the furnace and such over into the left back corner behind that white door....

 When you come to the bottom of the stairs, you used to look at the furnace and the opening to a small office space...

Now, with everything moved out of the way and the walls to the old office demolished, the only thing left of the old stuff is the support column that we ended up staining to match the new stair treads.

Looking back at the stairs, that open space to the left used to be our pantry as there was no room in the old kitchen. It used to bug me to have to go down to the creepy basement to get food...

 
Now we have storage cabinets for games and art supplies as well as a little refrigerator for drinks and a microwave for popcorn.  Gotta love movie night!!!  David and I stained the stair treads and put five coats of polyurethane on them.  I just love them...

This is looking into the old office... notice the drain pipe running through it... that really used to bug me...

Now we have room for a big comfy sofa and bean bag chairs.  The drain pipe was completely taken out, and now we have a great room to just hang out and play games or watch movies...

We love this large refrigerator under the stairs for all of our extras, especially because it fits entire pizza boxes!  We really didn't want to get rid of it, but it doesn't look too nice...

So it is hidden in the mechanical room behind closed doors!

 Standing in the corner where the new mechanical room is, you look back towards the center of the basement and all you see is a mess of equipment around the chimney.

 We took the chimney out and along with moving all of the equipment, it really opened things up.

Looking from inside the old office towards the stairs...

Now it is so open and much lighter...

This back corner of the basement is now enclosed in the new mechanical room...

 

We have our water softener to the left, and furnace is behind that white thing on the right.  The white thing is our new hot water on demand system.  

This Baxi hot water system heats all of the household hot water including the underfloor heating.  It is awesome and has already saved us loads of money in heating bills...

The old back basement door that goes outside to stairs that lead up to the deck...

What a difference a remodel makes...

This is the area to the right of the basement door.

Standing here, you can look back towards the corner of the basement where the stairs come down.  You can't even see the stairs because of the chimney and all of the other junk in the way...

Now it looks like this... so nice and open...

Of course, we used to have a toilet down in the basement.  Jason is the only one who ever used it.  When we were taking things out we found out that it had just been set there, never bolted down.  So lucky we never had any mishaps...

Now we have put in a full bathroom, so any of you out of town visitors can have a place of your own.  (in town visitors can stay over as well)

 Took the door off for some of the pics...

 That's me saying "cheese".  Take special notice of my waterfall tile design.  That came to me while I was out to lunch with David one afternoon.

It looks small, but that is actually a six foot tub that is three feet wide.  Luxurious...

Had just enough room to put in a toilet...

And this is what it looks like if you are standing in the bathtub...

Last but not least, the back door leading out to the stairway up to the deck.

That is just a teaser as my next post will be about the new deck.  So excited that we are nearing the end here...   We will have an open house when the deck is finished and the last few things inside the house are done.

Until next time...

~Mary