Making it real.

April writing...

The following pictures are a graphic depiction of the area we call our "basement." Viewer discretion is advised.

For reals...it isn't pretty.
In fact. It's quite messy. A hodge-podge of stuff and space, just waiting to be developed into the wonderful basement we know it could be!

You ready for the tour??
Here we go...first, we begin at the stairs...it's already scary and daunting.
*please note the foot traffic trail going down the middle of the stairs...yep, that carpet is OLD my friends.

Now, once you reach the bottom of the stairs you will first be greeted with the work area. Which will one day be the Den. Our basement "living room." It will house a large TV, more than likely a sectional, perfectly suited for movie watching, and maybe a few giant bean bags!
The colors have yet to be decided...however this area has been dubbed "the man room," so in all likelihood sports colors and memorabilia will be included in this area, and the game room/exercise room.

As you can see, for now it houses miscellaneous tools that are needed to finish the basement!

To your left at the bottom of the stairs you are greeted with the temporary pantry area; and even more to the left is my temporary craft room.

Beyond the pantry area to the left and towards the front of the house is the tool storage area, and will be the future home of the game room/exercise room and a nice sized closet for storage. There will also be one 3' x 3' closet all the way in the left corner to house the BGE pipes, meter and sump pump on their own, away from the rest of the storage.

Ok...now let's go back to the bottom of the stairs. To your right is a small nook area that now serves as bike and sports equipment storage, but will be the eventual home of our Office.

Walking towards the back of the house with the future Office on your left, you will go down a little all area, where we will be putting another nice sized closet underneath the stairs. Who doesn't love storage space?!

Now the door to the left, that you will see in the picture below...that is where the already completed half bath is. (Well done on that room baby!)

Once you get to the end of that hallway, to your left is our Laundry Room, and the future home of...the Laundry Room. :)

The set up will remain the same...it will just look nicer...uh-duh.

From this spot if you look to your right, you will see what is now the exercise room. But this is actually the future home of my Craft Room. Oh the potential I see here!! Such a great size too!!

So that completes the semi-frightening tour of our basement. Now, for the oh-so-joyous part!! We have been slowly working on finishing the basement, starting with the half-bath, because another bathroom was desperately needed; as we only had one full bath upstairs. We have been slowly but surely collecting tools and items needed, i.e. 2x4's, drywall, etc. In fact in some of the pictures above you will have seen some rooms have studs already placed, like in the Laundry Room.

Well, both Husby and I are visual people...and I may be a bit nervous of leaving Husby alone to finish some projects alone, worrying that he may forget how we decided to do things...so drawings were a must!!

So, last night I sat for about 2 1/2 hours designing the basement using Google SketchUp. Which is a great free software that is reasonably easy to use!

Now do you want to see what the basement WILL look like?? Mind you, these drawings are mostly without extras like, sofas, TV's, desks, etc.; but that's all coming soon!!

Here is an overall top view layout. From left to right...front of the house to back of the house.

Here is a view from the top going from left to right is the back of the house to the front of the house.

Here's a closer view...from the future game room/exercise room looking towards the door (right) towards the stairs and pantry door (right) and the Office past the stairs (where the brown, future hardwood flooring) will be. To the left is the Den.

Here we have the opposite view...from the Den looking towards the storage closet, game room/exercise room and pantry door and stairs.

Here is that same view towards the game room/exercise room and storage closet from the Office. Here you will also see a view of the closet that will go under the stairs.

Here is the view from the craft room towards the laundry room and the the half bath.

Ahhhh yes, all you need is a few visuals and it seems to make it all so REAL! Husby said last night as we were looking at the drawings, "If only it were that easy to finish it all!"

We realize it will take time...but I can't WAIT for the finished project. If I were bold, I would say that this should be done in the next year and half. *fingers crossed* A girl can dream right?!?!

What do you think?