Prudent and Practical

Winter is approaching. Since we’re spending more time being indoors, D and I decided to get a start on the basement. Iowa winters can be harsh so the main objective is to turn the basement into something fun ~ a movie room! This is not going to be a nice television downstairs room. We are going all out (almost) on a budget and can’t wait to both share the results with you and use the room as well. And embarrassingly, it’s messy now because we’re in the middle of a project ~ I love how projects come together near the end

Here’s the main idea:

• Red and ivory with black accents. Since we’re on the verge of putting it up for sale when the economy gets better, we didn’t want to go the traditional home theater room route by making it floor to ceiling (and including the ceiling) black, navy blue, or hunter green. That freaks me out just thinking about it… it would be complete turnoff to potential buyers. Keep in mind that this is a long and narrow basement room, not a dedicated theater room. We wanted to make it fun and functional, yet intriguing to potential buyers. And if it doesn’t sell for a while, we have something to enjoy!
• Replace old globe lights with recessed and add more lights
• Replace old, dirty outlet covers with new wood ones
• Paint the walls – ivory on top and red on bottom, separated by a chair rail molding
• Get rid of self-stick duck wallpaper border
• Update the furniture – one new piece, slipcovers for the old couch and love seat, paint our modular/retro side tables
• Move the projector screen to another wall – 120-inches of movie goodness!
• Make a decorative cover for the projector screen casing and sew up some black velvet curtains
• When we can find a good deal, we will be replacing the dark, splotchy brown carpet with a lighter carpet and tiles near the basement entry. Eve has unraveled the carpet at the laundry room, so the tile will solve her bad habit, while giving us a floor for…
• Installing a 5-foot wet or dry bar by the laundry room
• And finally garnishing with our favorite movie posters and memorabilia!

How do we plan to do this?

• We already have the projector screen and D made a projector three years ago – he really loves DIY projects!
• We purchased the paint and recessed lights on sale through Menard’s.
• We purchased one slipcover on clearance through Target.
• We purchased our new piece of furniture, “The Big One” LoveSac off of Craigslist for less than 1/3 the new price.
• D purchased surround sound speakers and a receiver on clearance online.
• I am looking to purchase a granite slab and cabinets off of Craigslist for the wet/dry bar.
• I need to call in a plumber to see if he can do a drain or pipe or something to make a wet bar. If it’s going to be to extensive or expensive, it will just be a dry bar.
• I plan to purchase the movie screen curtain fabric through Hobby Lobby or Joann’s when it goes on sale.
• Carpeting and tile are still up in the air… we’re hesitant to spend that much money, but it will really improve the look of the basement. The room is 36′x12′ so we plan to have 30′x12′ carpet and 6′x12′ tile. We have no problem installing tile, since we have tackled that one before, twice. (Our kitchen doesn’t look like that now either!)

The Project Commences

We started with the lights. The weather’s (uncharacteristically) nice now, but will soon become chilling. Turning off the basement light breaker means turning off our thermostat upstairs – yes, our house is wired extremely weird – and turning off the heat for a loooong time, while D works his arms off.

Of course there are a few surprises. A “nest” of wires just tossed up in the ceiling. Multiple wires coming together but not in a junction box. And of course, you’ve got to love the 3-way lights: because somebody couldn’t walk reach 3 feet to turn off a switch. This means a lot more time and care go into making sure that certain wires are connected to the right place. And a quick note ~ I really wanted to change the drop ceiling to drywall a while back. We were told by a realtor that making the change in our town would not help sell it, so we left it. So as much as I dislike the stuff, you can see in the photos how much we have benefited from it.

So, what projects are you up to this week? What’s the biggest project you’ve tackled? Do you like LoveSacs?