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Basement Reveal(ish)

Hey there. So where have I been? If you've made the assumption that I've been off painting and raising children, then you are correct. As always.
Summer is in full swing but before I even comment on that, let's talk about the basement. People have been stopping me in the street, demanding to know which color I chose for the ceiling. Forks drop at restaurants when I walk in and the mob swarms 'round me, insisting I show them photos of the pocket doors. It's just hard being a little-known blogger in the midwest, you know.
So let me put the basement fever to rest and get to it.
When we purchased the house, the basement was a tragic mess of mold and general filth. It wasn't really the selling point of the home, but it makes for a good story.
We drew out plans for the basement using mad design skills and construction began. The basement plan is pretty simple: a family room, playroom, laundry room and storage room. We also decided to leave the ceiling exposed to save money and headroom.
There are several unavoidable quirks about our basement, but the one that kept me up a night was the giant sewer pipe in front of the fireplace. There's just no hiding it.

The pipe got a fresh coat of matte black spray paint and I hoped for the best.

I also saved some cash (and added some awesome) by reusing some original doors to the house. They turned out so lovely.

I stressed and second-guessed and ulcered over the paint color for the basement ceiling. I wanted to keep it bright, but the color had to be an appropriately-aged white (after all, this is a 90 year old home) without going too gray or too cream.

And I nailed it. (For once).

The ceiling color is Seapearl and the walls are Gray Mist, both by Benjamin Moore.

For maximum headroom and to keep the tracks off the ceiling pipes, I decided to mount the tracks to the side of the joist. I felt a little nervous about the decision because I didn't know if this would create dark spots in the room, but it looks amazing and functions perfectly. I also retrofitted all the track lights with LED bulbs instead of the halogen bulbs they came with.

There was some unused space under the stairs that I claimed for a playhouse for the girls. Luckily, I have a giant stockpile of gray-blue paints to choose from and painted it one of those colors.

My father-in-law attached the plywood planks to the playhouse and it looks amazing!

Down the road, I'd like to add an awning and door, but for now, it's just plain great. I also plan to refinish the steps coming down to the basement. Someday. When I get a second (fifth?) wind.

We repeated the plank wall just to make the pipe appear slightly cool and totally there on purpose.

This door was a Restore find that I painted black and had installed as a pocket door. On the other side of the window, you can see a peek of the laundry room, which isn't finished yet but is fully functional.

We kept the original fireplace as is for now, except for the brick in front. We replaced that with fabulous patterned tile.

And the pocket doors. There are just not enough words to describe how cool they make the room.

Sigh.

Old doors just make a room better.

Having the basement finished has changed the way we live. We now spend most of our time here. The girls have already had too many dance and dress-up parties to count. As I type this, I am sitting on a plush couch where there once was mold and funky-funk that typically only lives in petrie dishes at the CDC.

It's unbelievable. We love having this space. Thanks for following our basement journey. But stop stopping me in the street already. I already have to deal with the paparazzi.

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basement, house tour

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Friday High Five

1. A must-try tutorial for laminate furniture.

via

2. A strange solution for the selfie-taker with no friends. (Can you imagine carrying that around?!?)
3. Hell, by personality type.
4. This light must. be. mine.

5. We're getting a pet this weekend and I am not terribly excited about it. Unless I can teach it to paint or assemble Ikea cabinets. That would be fantastic.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

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Friday High Five,

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Midnight Projects

Some people ask me when I work on the house stuff. It really depends on the schedule that day and the project at hand. I rarely pull out the paint during the day, especially if it's oil based, because by the time I get into the painting groove, the babe wakes up.
I spray paint, stain, scrub, sand, and whip out the heat gun during the day for various projects. Painting is typically my middle of the night project. Not so this week because I had helpers! And not just any helpers. I had The Moms. They deserve a proper noun because they're like an invincible force, ready to put a chokehold on a house project. Like what.
This week, they showed their prowess at the miter block while I stood aimlessly nearby and took photos.

And then, bam, the tile surround is done and The Moms drop the mic and move on.

(I am in love with that tile).

And for the rest of the day, we painted. I had completely underestimated the amount of paint we'd need for two coats in the basement. I initially had 3 gallons, but I think we ended up needing 8 or 9. Yikes, underestimating paint can kill your budget. Also, painting for that length of time will make your hand swell up, I discovered.

Marielle was sleeping during the morning paint session. And once she woke up, we hooked her up with the 80s playpen and an iPad, which kept her contained and happy for a bit. I occasionally tossed some food and drink in from time to time, as one would a fish in a bowl. Anything to keep her occupied.

I spent last night doing last minute paint touch ups, sanded & stained the stairs, primed a plank wall (photos soon!), and puttied the wood seams until the wee hours of the morning. Flooring comes tomorrow!

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basement,

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Refinishing

Y'all know I love Restore. It's like Disneyland for me, plus the proceeds go to a great cause. Win-win. We designed the living space in the basement to be separated from the storage room by a large doorway. A couple months ago, I was checking out Restore and I found some pocket doors from presumably a 1920s Victorian home. They were a perfectly matched set, had great hardware and the price was right. They're a different style from the original panel doors I have in the rest of the house, but they weren't overly ornate so I knew I could make them work in our basement.

I could have left the doors alone and they would have been fine. But they were a bit glossy and a touch red for my taste and I knew once they were in place, I wouldn't be able to mess with them. A couple weeks ago, I put one of the doors up on the sawhorse and started sanding just to see what transpired.
That turned out to be a terrible idea.
The wood underneath was in great condition, but sanding through all the finish on the doors was really tedious. I sanded with 60 grit paper on my orbital sander, which got a lot of the finish off. I switched to the heat gun and then to Citristrip. I didn't have the tools to get in all the inside crevices and 6 hours into the project, I wasn't even finished with one side of one door.
Yikes. I had opened a can of worms and there was no turning back. I didn't want to buy a whole set of tools to scrape the inner corners and knew I wouldn't have time to finish the doors by myself. I remembered a sign I had seen for Greg's Refinishing in my comings and goings. Even with the street sign, it was hard to find because it's small and set back from the street and I drove past it several times before I found it. I dropped the doors off and asked them just to strip them for me so that I could sand and finish them myself. The inside of their workspace was super cool.

Within a couple of days, I brought the doors home and they looked fabulous.

I sanded them down and finished them off with my trusty Danish oil. I have used this stuff on my china cabinet, front door and various refinishing projects.

I enlisted help from a budding local artist with nimble little fingers to get in the corners and edges.

I did three coats on each side with dry time in between.

I just finished the second door yesterday and propped it up against the wall near its new home.

I'm glad I went this route, even though it was an unexpected expense. Greg's Refinishing even took a little of the price to make me feel better about the 6 hours of worthless toil I had spent on the doors.

I used the Danish oil to refinish the original doors I already had, so all the doors will be finished in the same color. The carpenter is installing all the doors this week and it's going to be rad to see the doors in their new homes. It's been a busy week of painting the trim, basement walls, closets & laundry room and staining the boards & doors.

We're nearing the finish line of our basement project! Now comes the fun stuff like doors, paint, cabinets & carpet. That's my jam.

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basement, Be Local

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Basement Progress

Last week, we were in Boston. While I was gone, the basement ceiling was painted and the spray foam insulation was blown in. I had my "spies" at the house sending me progress shots but...gah! It was so hard to be gone, especially knowing that I tend to have some neurosis regarding paint colors.
I had decided against black for the ceiling color because it would make our already-low ceiling feel even lower, even though I know black would hide our crazy pipes well. I was aiming for a light gray that would read as an appropriately-aged white...but NOT cream. No yellow tones on the ceiling because it would look terrible with everything forever. Not that I am an extremist.
We arrived home in the evening and I made a beeline for the basement to check out the ceiling color.

Yes, the crazy pipes and old ceiling are still there, but it looks so much more cohesive! I chose Seapearl by Benjamin Moore (thanks for all of you who voted on Facebook!). I will be painting the walls Gray Mist by Ben Moore, which was my other color option for the ceiling. It's a shade darker and I figured that would look better on the walls.