Basement Renovation (Introduction)

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A while after we had finished installing the recessed lights in our basement, Ken and I started to seriously consider a major basement renovation. But, we wanted to keep the budget pretty small. Here is what we wanted to do:

• Remove the basement bar. Although it was a fun conversation piece, and we thought it was fun when we first moved in, we never really used it for entertaining. It was at an awkward spot. We couldn’t really use the area behind the bar for anything, since it was meant for people to stand there and serve drinks I guess? After living with the basement bar for nearly 7 years, we decided that it was a fairly big waste of space. So, it was time for it to go.

• Create a dedicated workspace / workshop table. As you can tell in our previous posts, like our DIY DVD shelves or our Ikea Barn Door Hack, or when installing our recessed lighting, our “worktable” consisted of a plastic folding table and an old black metal table that used to serve as Ken’s desk way back in the day. Since we don’t have a garage, and hardly any yard space, our finished basement is consistently our workspace, and we wanted to have a more finished looking spot to do our work!

• Get a nicer, softer carpet installed. The carpet in our basement was berber, and the texture of it drove me NUTS. There were always little strings getting loose and getting caught on things. Vacuuming the carpet was always a gamble, because a single thread pulled into the vacuum could cause like a 1/4“ strip of carpet to completely unravel and basically disappear. Plus, if the bottoms of my feet were even the slightest bit dry, sometimes the berber would like ”stick” to my feet. It was a yucky feeling!

• Somehow update the wall paneling. This proved to be the most problematic issue. Keep in mind that our paneling is not real wood, it is a fake vinyl-type wood. So that was a major factor in considering our options. We considered:
  • Ripping down the paneling and installing drywall in its place.
    • Pros: A fresh start on the walls in the basement, getting rid of the paneling once and for all.
    • Cons: VERY expensive. Also, ripping down the paneling meant that our entire baseboard trim would have to be ripped out and redone (since the drywall would be a different depth than the paneling). Further, we’d likely have to redo our entire drop ceiling, since the “grid” of the drop ceiling was attached to the paneling. Every time we heard more and more problems with ripping down the paneling and replacing it with drywall, all we heard was money rapidly draining from our savings account. This option would cost us $10,000+. Not exactly within our “small budget” desires.
  • Drywalling OVER the existing paneling using thinner drywall (like 1/4 inch).
    • Pros: Saving labor costs of ripping down paneling. The drop ceiling grid would likely NOT have to be redone, as some sort of moulding option could have been added to hide where the drywall met the ceiling grid.
    • Cons: We weren’t sure how the moulding option would look. Also, We’d STILL have to redo our baseboard trim since the new drywall would now protrude beyond the baseboard. Furthermore, the addition of the new drywall, no matter how thin, would make the drywall almost flush with the doorway frames in our basement (like the doors to the basement bathroom and to the laundry room.) We DEFINITELY knew that would look weird.
  • Painting over the paneling (without filling in the grooves.)
    • Pros: Relatively cheap and we could DIY the paint job.
    • Cons: Labor intensive (lots of sanding, oil-based primers, and many coats of paint). Also, I was afraid that the finished look would be a bit too “country cottage” for my taste. (I found tutorials here, here and here).
  • Painting over paneling (with filling in the grooves with wood putty or drywall spackle or caulk). (I had read tutorials for this method like here and here.)
    • Pros: Relatively cheap and would avoid the “country cottage” look of painted paneling that still has grooves.
    • Cons: EXTREMELY EXTREMELY LABOR INTENSIVE. Plus, there were questions about whether filling in the grooves would end up being smooth enough to paint over. Our basement is quite large, and the thought of filling in every single one of those grooves and then having to sand them down (in addition to all the “normal” prep work that would go along with painting paneling) made me shudder!

So, what option did we go for to handle the wood paneling? It wasn’t any of the above! I’ll talk about the option that we FINALLY selected in a subsequent post in this series. But it IS AWESOME!

For reference, here are some “before” photos of our basement! (Looking cleaner than it ever has!)

Notice how dark the basement is with the wood paneling, even after installing our great recessed lights!

Here are our ugly, non-dedicated work areas:

And the bar which, while fun, was a waste of space.

And, our “home theater” area with our couch, TV, and projection screen that comes down.

The next few posts will show all the steps of renovating this basement to a more modern space!