The story of our basement remodeling effort in pictures.   It was alot of work, but it's turned out to be an even more comfortable living environment for us than the 2 upstairs floors.
  • The state of the basement before we moved in - overflow junk storage for the previous owners.
  • Our home inspector pointing out all the problems we were about to inherit.
  • We knew the owners were going to have a real job on their hands clearing out all their old junk.
  • Our future bedroom was a woodworking shop with sawdust and dangling electrical wires everywhere.
  • A basement sewing room that would become our bedroom for a time, and eventually our office.
  • A good collection of haz-mat stuff to dispose of.
  • This useless hallway led past the darkroom to the sewing room and eventually got absorbed into the kitchen.
  • Once we moved into the basement we treated it basically like a camping experience.
  • By virtue of the existing sink, the former darkroom became our temporary kitchen.
  • The old woodshop became our temporary offices with his and hers computer stations.
  • The old sewing room became our temporary bedroom.
  • We were definitely living out of cardboard boxes at that point.
  • The first project was to close off the stairwell to the upstairs and build in a door to give our upstairs tenant some privacy.
  • Then we started doing some preliminary demolition to see how the space might be developed.
  • After the stairwell was closed off, Steve replaced the exterior solid door with a glass door, which brought in lots more light from the east.
  • The state of the basement when we started interviewing basement contractors.
  • It's starting to look like a construction zone.
  • ...a construction zone that we were still living in!
  • Lots of stuff in the ceilings to work around, including low-slung structural beams.
  • Once we'd chosen a contractor, we started doing serious demolition, and filled up several dumpster loads.
  • Theoretically, we were saving money doing the demolition ourselves before the framers came in.
  • The framers arrived and started re-forming the interior spaces.
  • There were really only a few entirely new walls, like this one turning an old hallway into our new kitchen alcove.
  • Things were in the framing stage for quite awhile.
  • Future bedroom closets where once was a hallway.
  • Another bedroom closet-to-be.
  • Alot of work got done in the ceiling, especially reinforcing the upstairs flooring and running new conduit and ductwork.