Basement Project in the Works!

Last week I showed you photos from my home office. Well, since I turned my guest bedroom into a home office, I now have no room for my guest room. This is a problem because my cousin is getting married at the end of October and we have family coming to stay with us then.

SO......we are now going to turn one of the small rooms in the basement into a guest room. Originally I wanted the space to be a workout room but I've relocated that to another section of the basement.

Ugh, we have our work cut out for us. The future guest room was originally the coal room for the house. All 4 walls are 8" thick concrete so we are not changing the walls, window or doorway at all (not in the budget time-wise or pocket-wise!) Here is what the basement room looked like before we started:

I'm kinda embarrassed to share the before pictures because of how scary it looks! It's like I'm making my guests sleep in the dungeon or something. I promise, when we're finished it will be cute and charming (fingers crossed! haha). I will even sleep in it myself to test it out before my guests arrive. I checked with Alfie and he's game.

We previously used the room for paint and tool storage, as well as to work on projects. I've sanded a bunch of furniture in here so everything was covered in a thick layer of sawdust. We've also spray painted quite a bit so lots of spots on the walls had to be Kilzed. It's basically been the crap room since we moved in.

Take another look at the window because this little guy has already come a looooong way.

This past weekend was spent removing everything while cleaning all the dust off, Washing all the walls with a special cleanser that kills mildew, painting two coats on the exterior walls with waterproofing paint, leveling the floor with a very fine cement, AND started the framing for the interior walls and a closet we're adding. Whew!

Here's some of the progress we've made:

And here's a look at the window now:

Amazing what a little frog tape, Kilz and paint stripper can do! It will look even better once the trim goes up.

This one is one of my favs from the weekend. We woke up and got to work....still in our pjs, haha. Here Brian is working on redoing the cover for the old coal door. Inside was some old cardboard and insulation. We're hoping to mount the new cover flush with the wall so it's not as noticeable. 

My goal is to share updates every week on our progress until the room is finished. The good news is I already have all the furniture and decorations to fill the space (since it will basically be all the same stuff from my old guest room), AND the new flooring and most of the materials have already been purchased. Nothing is in our way now except for finding the time to finish it!