Absolutely gorgeous!!!!! This is exactly what we are hoping to do one day. I have a couple of questions- how high are your ceilings? It doesn't look "basement-like" at all- not dark. Also, did you do your mud room cubbies yourself or order them?

Thanks clarela! Our ceilings are 9' at the center and about 8' around the perimeter which forms the tray. We have windows in the guest bedroom, entry and hobby room but the rest of the rooms have no natural light. The silver sage paint did a great job of brightening all of the rooms. I designed the layout of the cubbies and my DH built them using 3/4" plywood and stock mouldings.

Absolutely gorgeous! And kudos to you and dh for doing it yourselves. We just spent a ton more on a basement that is smaller (roughly 900 sq. feet) because a contractor did most of the work (all but the paint and the carpet tiles).

I love your flooring choices and your bathroom. The accent tile in your shower is beautiful, and everything is so well decorated and pulled together.

Can I ask where you got your toy storage unit? I am looking for something similar (in a wood tone). I like that yours has long shelves instead of cubbies all the way through.

lisalm,

Thank you for the compliments! We are enjoying the extra space. The toy storage unit was built by my DH, so I am sorry I can't offer advice on where to find one. The only stores that come to mind are Potterybarn kids and landofnod.com. Maybe a combination of a couple of different items?

I remember your house from the BAH forum. Looks like you did just as nice of a job on your basement. Congratulations!

Please tell me where you got that shelving unit in your playroom on picture 5. I have a playroom in my basement that I would be embarrased to show pics of--your playroom has given me inspiration.

hello blsdgal,

I still post on BAH occasionally. I hope you are enjoying your new home. I remember your basement, it was an inspiration to me. You had the awesome wet bar/kitchenette if I remember. We hope to complete ours early 2007.
It looks like you are referring to the same unit as lisalm above. My DH made that piece for me when our youngest was born. It was modeled after something I saw on Designer's Challenge several years ago. I would be happy to post close up's for you both, if you'd like to try and copy it?, along with measurements and materials. I am hoping we can build the daybed and shelves for the playroom soon, so I can get that mattress off the floor!

Yes, I would love to have close ups of the unit. My dh is not too handy, but if I had pics, I might be able to have the guy that did my built ins upstairs build me something close to what you have. Must be nice to have such a handy dh. Oh well, mine has lots of other good qualities.

Thanks!

Thanks for posting your pics. Love your space. We need to finish our basement and I am completely overwhelmed. I would like similar rooms but include an office as well.

Your ceilings are so high! Makes the space so well, spacious. LOL!

blsdgal,

I am so sorry. A while back I added the info you requested to the photo album linked above, but then I haven't been able to sign onto gardenweb since to let you know.

Every time I tried to log in I would get an error message stating the operation timed out while trying to contact auth.gardenweb.com. I tried all three browsers -netscape, mozilla, and internet explorer plus tried with my sons computer but no luck. I emailed for tech support and they said there was nothing wrong, even though this was the ONLY site I was having trouble with. Then tonite I tried as I do every evening and it let me in.
Anyway, the info you needed about the toy storage unit is posted as a header on each photo. If you need more info just let me know.

Yeah, High ceiling in your basement works GREAT. that daybed with shelves where did you see that?

I like the toy hutch, did you buy it or build it?

If I build a house nextime, DEFINATELY high basement ceilings and walk out basement too.

ekoreilly,

the photo of the daybed/shelves that we plan to build in the kids playroom is from an old pottery barn catalog. I checked and it is still shown on their website. I have linked it below.

hedygs,

thanks for the compliments!! We also have a small office in the basement. It is only 8x9 and completely empty so I didn't take any pictures of it. We plan to do built-in's with a desk all along the 9' wall. I hope to use it for crafts, gift wrapping, homework, sewing etc - so maybe more of a hobby room since we have a dedicated office on the main floor.

Here is a link that might be useful: pb daybed and shelves

That really looks nice.

Anyone contemplating an "Owens Corning" basement should look at your pictures first :)

Anyone contemplating an "Owens Corning" basement should be kicked out of their house and into an apartment.

legardhome,
excellent job.
I finished my basement last Dec and we're enjoying our new space too.
One thing we still need to do is docorate. I see you already have some nice finishing touches, i.e. the wall pictures.
I've been working on a 1000 peice puzzle for a while now. Eventually it may get finished and hung. I realize I don't have the patience for puzzles, so I will have to buy some other wall art or decor. I'm open to suggestions.
Also, I noticed we have the same multi-game table.

Anyway, thanks for sharing.
-jasper

jasper,

That's funny about the 1000 pc puzzle. We were the first ones in a new development and didn't have cable or phone for a month so we finished a puzzle as our nightly entertainment. I also plan to frame and hang it as a tribute to all of those nights working on it!
My kids love that game table, but it is a pain trying to store the additional tops when they are not on the table.
My thoughts in posting my photos was to show just what could be done with a relatively "small" amount of money. 1500 sq ft for $17,000. That's just 11 a sq ft and we didn't scrimp on materials.
Santa was nice enough to bring us a home theater system. Projector, screen, surround sound speakers. I hope we can get everything installed this weekend and I'll add the photo's to the blog.

Looks great. I would suggest you upgrade your pool table however!!-LOL :-)

I'm at a loss -
this is a basement? From the bedroom you can see it is actually higher than the outside plantings. The entrace pic shows the garage is to the left and there is an slope to the garage. There is one photo of a 4 tread staircase - this is not what most of us would call a basement. Much more like a side to side split in the midwest.

you'll have to post some photos from the outside to give us a better perspective.

Tim

Tim,

This actually is a walk out basement. Because of the slope of the lot, the walkout had to be on the side rather than the back but worked out well in the end allowing us a great layout of the interior rooms.

Here is a photo to help you picture it. The stairs you mentioned are only the first part of the staircase to the main floor. The stairs turn and continue another 9 steps.

Sorry, I haven't taken any recent photos of this side of the home. The door leads into the entry/mud area from the detached garage. The triple windows are in the guest room and the single window is in the hobbyroom.

and from the front....
{{gwi:1387324}}

Very nice.

It reminds me of the courthouse on Little House on the Prairie when they move to Mankato.

Do you have a little gymnast in your family? It looked like there was a bar and beam in the gym :)

Legardhome-
ravlegend here again (from the new home forum).

Just curious- where did you wind up getting your countertop & casework from?

Hello All, haven't checked this site in a while.

Granite Man,
LOL! I've heard that it looks like a courthouse alot. I actually don't care for the exterior, but we were in a hurry to get something built before school started back, so I chose a preapproved plan for our development that had a floor plan I could live with. Here in Central Va colonials are pretty much all you get.

bargainacious,
yes, I have a level 6 gymnast and this room is mainly for her, although I am looking forward to being able to use it for something else.

ravlegend,
The vanity in the guest bath is the only cabinetry/countertop we have so far. The cabinet is Kraftmaid Cherry with a nutmeg glaze and the counter top is a prefab granite in Madura Gold. Both came from Lowes. We hope to do the cabinetry in the wetbar and hobby room this year.

By the way, what's up with those annoying videos that block the entire screen???

I absolutely love your basement. Congratulations - you and your husband obviously work well together and have great taste!

I saw that your vanity and countertop came from Lowe's. We are getting ready to remodel a bathroom in our house, and this looks exactly like what I have been looking for. Did you also get your tile from Lowe's? Do you mind if I ask you what kind/type it is?

By the way, I am in Central VA also!

Thanks for sharing all your pictures.

meganmm,

Thank you, we are enjoying it. I see I listed the name of the granite incorrectly in the above post. We have Madura gold in our master bath, the basement bath is kashmir gold. Let me give you some background on the countertop. Lowes had advertised last summer, in the Sunday supplement, a 48" pre fab granite top in Desert Gold for something like $269. In a little section to the side it said also available in Kashmir Gold, Black Absolute and Blue Pearl. Kashmir gold was close to what I was considering in "real" granite, so I went in to order it. No luck. The salesperson couldn't find a sku for it. After several days and plenty of phone calls, it became apparent that it was a misprint. After talking with the manager he agreed to sell me one for the advertised price, but it should have been closer to $600! So I got a really good deal on that.
The tile is travertine and was a special order from Home Depot. The floor tiles were 18x18 and we cut them to do the hopscotch pattern. The wall tiles in the shower are 12x12 below the insert and the same tiles cut into 6x12 subways above. The insert itself is a 12x12 sheet of kashmir gold mosaic with a travertine pencil liner. We purchased all of the tile during a 20% off sale on special order tile at HD.

Good luck with your project. Feel free to email me if you have anymore questions, since now that I have gone back to work I don't check in here very often.

Hi there - I don't know if you're still checking this thread, but I'd love to see your basement pics. Unfortunately, when I follow the link in your first posting above, it asks for a login and password. Any thoughts on how I can access the pics of your gorgeous basement? Thanks.

Me too- I would love to see pics and looks like we need a password now?

I, too, would love to take a look at your basement! How can we get in to see pictures?

Sorry Guys!!!

I recently made the album private with the intention of uploading some new photos now that the home theater is in but never got around to it.

Now that I have returned to work after being a "stay at home" mom for 6 years I just don't seem to have time for things like this. Imagine that!

Anyway, I never got around to taking new photos but I have opened the album back up, so the link should work now.

I will try to get new photos uploaded this week

I liked your bath decor. May I have the following info on your bath decor (where & cost):

-curved shower curtain rod
-bath tub tile

Also what's the walkway floor tiles - traventine?

Think there should be a seperate forum topic on Gardenweb just on Legardhome for her fans LOL

Ravlegend

The curved shower rod came from Bed, Bath and Beyond and I used a 20% coupon. Final cost was $32 (I think).

Bath tub tile came from Home Depot. 12" square travertine (cut in half for above insert) was $3.99 sq ft, a travertine edge pencil molding was $7-9 a piece (not exactly sure on this), the insert was 12" kashmir gold mosaic sheets; these were $16 each and I only needed 4 since each one was cut into 3 strips. They had a 20% off sale on special order tile at the time, and I had a 10% off coupon that they also honored, for a total of $395 for the tub surround.

The foyer, entry and bathroom are 18x18 travertine, also from HD. This was a special purchase tile. They had several crates of the stuff for $2.69 a sq ft. We picked out the lightest colors and used them in the bath, the more golden ones were used in the other areas.

Hope this helps. If it weren't so nice out, I would take some more photos!

I would love to see the basement pictures but the album is private again.

I would also love to see these basement pictures.

password needed - would like to see these pictures!