steve - I know one of the issues w/laminate is the noise issue, since it is a floating floor - Does the $1.60 include pricing for the underlayment? - The concrete slab will need to be leveled or you will have problems w/install and longevity of flooring To me the $3.50 for carpet installed sounds like a better deal - but that is me - I am a somewhat DIY - but I think by the time I got the proper tools and figured out how to do the floor it would be well over the $3.50 ft - Add to that the need for some type of area rug/s following installation - Tools/material/time/mistakes - per sq ft + $1.60 initial product - Even though the basement is "dry" - basements are more likely than any other room to have a moisture problem - I went w/carpet just tacked down so that if I do have any water problems its a relatively easy fix Good luck

Ncdel--why not go ahead and paint around the closet? You might be in this house for more than two years--you never know. Or you could paint the inside all pink and purple, or whatever your daughter's favorite colors are. Another consideration is that this is a playroom. I suspect, when you start getting this house ready to sell, you are going to have to paint the playroom anyway--kids do tend to make marks on the walls, even when they are trying not to. Balls get bounced, toy trucks are let loose, stuff happens. And by the time you move, your daughter may have outgrown the dress-up stage. So if you really want to give her a special little girly space, I'd say go ahead and do it. If you knew for certain sure that you would be moving in a year, I'd say don't do it. But a "maybe" move in a couple of years? You don't want to spend the next couple of years feeling as if you can't do anything you really want to do in the house because you are moving soon. Two years is a long time to live in a place without changing it to suit you and your family. I know. My dad was in the military and we moved every year or two. The longest we stayed in any one house was two and a half years. My parents were adamantly opposed to doing anything to any house we lived in--or maybe it was that they didn't want to spend a single cent on something that would be left behind when we moved (they were very frugal). We coped with furniture that didn't fit, curtains that didn't cover windows, inadequate storage in many houses, weird wall colors that clashed with our furniture, you name it. And even my parents would complain about the poor lighting in a room, or the lack of storage space in the kitchen, or how echo-y a certain room was--all of which could have been solved with less than $100 spent on lamps, or a microwave cart or some curtains or a small area rug. I think this is why I am so concerned with how my surroundings look today. I'm not saying go hog wild and spend tons of money and time and effort to make the house totally "you." If you are moving in a few years, that would be a lot of investment that you wouldn't get back. But a few little projects, the ones that speak to you the most and that would make you feel more at home in your own home--things that you can do in a day or that cost less than $200--go ahead and do a few of them. There's a happy medium between doing nothing to personalize the space and personalizing every square inch of the house. And if you don't want to paint, do check out the wall decals that are so popular right now--you could decal the closet door and just peel them off when you move.

Your title says playroom. Your pictures show a bar area? It does matter. Is this a playroom for children? I understand wanting it to look nice, but I personally would go for the least expensive option for a child's playroom with a plan to replace it in the future. Does your flooring store carry carpet remnants? In our previous home we found a very large, dark blue remnant that was used for the children's playroom. The cost was minimal and it didn't bother us too much when it had to be replaced a few years later. The room did have 3 windows as it was a walkout basement so the dark blue worked for us.

While we continue to contemplate flooring, we are moving on to the paint. We have decided to paint the back wall (below the two windows) black, the shelving will be white, topped with a stained board to pull everything together. (See inspiration picture from Bless ‘er House below) We’re going with Sherwin Williams Caviar black. Will paint that same black on the banister. Anyone have a coordinating white color recommendation to make for the walls and the spindles of the banister? I was thinking high reflective white - will that be too white for the walls? Painter due to come on Tuesday. Any input is appreciated!