Do you want a hot trend that's good for five years or a personal color scheme that you'll like for much longer? If you want the hot trend for your area, look at photos of your local showcase house from the last year or two. If you want a more personal color scheme, collect some photos of rooms you really love, then look for the colors in common.

I think I understand what your inspector wants, but its not common to add insulation to the interior doors just because you finish a basement. However, most folks also do not put insulation in the basement ceiling if there is a plan to finish the basement later, since you then have insulation between two conditioned spaces. I'm not an HVAC guy, but it also looks like your heating system is a high efficiency unit that draws its combustion air from outside. The telltale sign is that it has two pipes (air in, exhaust out?), and the exhaust pipe is made of PVC, not metal. It may not even need any other air source (vented door, etc.), since it uses outside air for combustion. Its very typical to finish all of the basement except the utility room (leaving it with concrete walls), and still have a louvered door or vents connecting that room to the finished part of the basement. You lose some heat through the uninsulated concrete walls in the utility area, but its usually not that significant. Bruce

Amanda, lots can be done with this basement...most importantly you want this done to suit your needs. I can do this in a 3D environment, this way you will see how everything will be as it was already built, get the feel of the space and you can make any changes and see how they will effect the surrounding area. If you interested doing that, please leave me a message on my profile page with your email and I will contact you with details. Thanks!

Everything needs to be done on your list, but bathroom flooring you can do later that will not make too much of a mess since it's a small area, and installing vinyl flooring is now making too much of a mess since you can scribe it to cut. Other than that you need doors and you need moldings before carpet, get everything painted so only touch-ups left. Get taping and sanding out of the way, get the plumbing done, and paint the bathroom so the only thing you have left is a few touch-ups and vacuum the carpet.