Our Finished Basement

 We finished our basement last year (2010).  It has been so nice to have it done.  I should have shared the pictures of the work in progress first.  Those will probably be in the next post.  Here is the finished family room/playroom.

 I wanted to do a fun "game" theme in this room. 

 We purchased the couches, bookcases and armoire used from other people.  We spent about $650 total for all the furniture.  Pretty good deal for everything we got. 

 This old army chest was given to us.  As far as we can tell it was used for Russian guns.  It was in really bad shape.  I spent hours scraping off paint and then putting 6 coats of polyeurethane on it.  I cut legs for it so it would be up off the ground and a better coffee table height.

 I lined it with fabric using brass tacks.  We store blankets in it.  It is so great to just open it up and pull out a blanket to cuddle in while we watch movies. 

 We wanted a fireplace in the basement because it gets pretty chilly down there in the winter time.  DH and I rocked this ourselves.  DH made the mantle and the hearth.  It turned out so great. 

 This chess board is what inspired my decorating themem for this room.  I had to have it down there.  It is a chess board that my grandpa made in high school.  He will be 97 this year, so that makes it pretty old!  I love it. 

 This armoire houses all the equipment for our theater system.  We also added a microwave to pop popcorn, and a big basket of movie theater candy.

 Our barbie house finally has a place to go instead of our upstairs family room. 

 In keeping with the theme for the room, DH made me some giant dominos.  I found the bowling pin at a second hand store.  It was pretty white and shiny so I took it out and scraped it on the cement and beat it up a little.  Then I stained it.  I like the way it turned out.  DH's parents gave me the little rusty bicycle years ago.  I saved it to put in a little boys room someday.  (Well, that didn't happen!)  It goes perfect in here.  The little wooden cups are cups DH made in high school.  They aren't really "game" pieces, but they are up high where the kids can't break them. 

 Bookcases filled with books and scrapbooks.

 We built a large closet for all the toys and games.  I love that I can just shut the door on all the mess.  I love that it is all labelled and cute too. 

 We made this little magnet board for the kids to play with.  I wanted some Scrabble pieces to make into magnets to go on it.  I didn't want to buy a new game to do this with, so every time I went to the thrift store I would look for a used one.  I couldn't find one.  We went to several thrift stores...even one in St. George, and still had no luck.  I mentioned to a friend in our ward that I was looking for one.  Her husband found one for me when he went to the thrift store.  It was so nice of him to get it for me!  The girls have lots of fun spelling things with all the letters. 

 We tore out part of the wall at the bottom of the stairs so that we could kind of open up the space.  We did this open stair rail.  It really adds a lot to the space.  I am so glad we decided to do this.  It would have been impossible to get our couches and furniture down there if we had not.  It was still a pretty tricky task as it was!

 We also have a guest bedroom (which will eventually be one of the girls bedrooms), a craft room (which will ALWAYS be a craft room despite my husband thinking that we could use it as a bedroom someday....I am putting my foot down on this one!), a storage room, a food storage room, and a storage/treadmill room. 

The basement turned out so good.  My DH worked so hard.  We did everything ourselves except for the heat ducting and gas line.  My DH is pretty talented.  I am always so grateful that he can do so many things.  I will share more of the basement later.