finishing the basement - the beginning

We built our house 4 years ago and I moved all my artsy and fitness stuff into the basement.  Every time I go down into the basement, I day dream of finishing it, but after 4 years I finally realize that I'll have to do the work myself as $25,000 is just too much for me.

So back in June, I announced to Burke that it was time to begin finishing the basement. He looked at me as if I had turned into an alien and had squids coming out of my head. I told him, "I'll let that digest" and I walked away.

I began with going to my favorite resource - youtube, and looking up anything having to do basement finishing.  There's plenty of resources available. I spent hours there.

I also purchased a Sweet Home 3D from the Apple app store. I found the basement plans and started designing. It's a great app, easy to use and I love how easy is it to get a visional on our plans.

At least we had the foresight to have several egress windows and 9 foot ceiling installed. I consulted with several license contractors about my questions particularly regarding the bathroom plumbing.

After many, many fights with the husband, we sort of agreed on design.

And then it began. I ordered the wood and set to have it delivered. Initially I ordered 130 2x4's and various length of top and bottom plates.

This actually was my photography area. Really, really raw, but effective. You can see the pipes coming out of the floor for the bathroom plumbing. The plumbing was roughed in when the house was built.

It's actually going on pretty well. We originally rented a few power tools to help complete the work. I finally realized it was much cheaper to buy them, so my new framing nail gun arrived in the mail last week. So far, we've spent about $1,000 on materials. Lots has changed since these pictures. The vision is starting to come together. The artist lair is underway.

paper hearts

We recently changed things up a bit in our room we keep for the foreign exchange students. I wanted something different for a design over the bed and I went with this.

Paper Hearts! It was so easy to make and I already had everything I needed, so no additional costs.

And it looks fabulous! I actually found the idea on Pinterest. You can see this idea and others here.

I got out my Brother Scan N Cut and found a preloaded heart shape I liked.

I cut out 10 different sheets of different color hearts.

My husband Burke found this dowel in the garage - so we went with that.

Holly and I hot glued the hearts onto ribbon I had in my craft stash.

And I literally just tied the ribbon to the dowel. Burke hung it on the wall using some leftover tacks we had from running electrical in the basement.

So easy .... took a couple of hours to complete and we used existing items in the house. It really gave the bedroom some cool color additions.