{Basement: The Beginning}

This is very, very overdue, but I'm so excited to start sharing the progression of our basement renovation! 

I did a little recap a few weeks ago...and yeah...now I'm finally getting to the point where I can update again :) 

Let me start with a little reminder of what the house looked like in 2010 when we bought the house! 

Orange paneling is an obvious option...right? 

So when we bought the house, we did quick fixes. We painted the paneling, had new carpet installed, and painted the fireplace. 

Made a big difference, but we had big plans for the area! 

So what exactly was our vision? 

Our goal was to make a super usable space, but also get the most out of this area. 

We will probably have two kids in this home, which will mean all of our bedrooms will be full of people. So our goal was to make a space downstairs for our desk and/or a bed in case we have guests. 

So this was our vision...in Lelia' best professional illustration :) 

It doesn't get any more professional...right? 

But pretty much our vision is to create a room with french doors {to get the light shining through} for a guest bedroom {slash office down the road} 

We also want to paint the fireplace white, and install some built-ins for our TV and some pretties. 

But before all of this could happen, we needed to demo. 

We hired a contractor to do the drywall {and skim over that popcorn ceiling}...but to save mucho bucks, we demoed ourselves! 

And I'll admit it...I kind of loved it! 

Here is where our bar used to be...

The bathroom where the vanity used to be {which got a bit messy due to some cutting into pipes along the way...oops :) 

Then it came time do some framing. 

We had this closet under our steps, but we decided to frame that out so that this room would have a closet. I'm excited to get creative in there sometime!

Then before we knew it, they were getting dry wall up super fast! It was incredible! 

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We couldn't get to our basement for a week straight. Which meant we couldn't get to our garage. Which mean we couldn't get to our laundry. So we had to go outside, and out back, to do laundry. First world problems...right? 

Then came time for all of the skimming...so so much skimming! It took almost a week of skimming, then drying. Skimming, then drying. 

But then it was time for paint...but you'll have to wait for that!