Makeover Monday - Basement Bathroom

One of my favorite things we've done to our house so far is finishing our basement and I love the way the bathroom turned out. Chris showers down there daily and I don't really blame him. It makes me so happy to see the room put together the way it is. It turned out WAY better than I could have imagined. We were on a pretty tight budget when finishing our basement and this may have cost a tiny bit more than we may have planned, but it was so worth it!

Here are picture showing the progress. We started with nothing, but a hole in the floor for plumbing, all the walls were put up by my dad and Chris. 

We bought the vanity at Home Depot before we even had walls built yet (notice the tape lines that my dad laid out so we could "have a vision" of the walls). We found it on clearance for $75! We were in love with it and the reason for the clearance/open item return - "slow moving drawer" All of the drawers work perfectly fine. The real problem is that you can't find a pre-made vanity top to fit it. We also bought the above vanity top and had to return it because it didn't fit the unit properly. We were bummed but in the long run, it was the best problem ever!

Got some walls up. I was pretty pumped about the vanity and was constantly moving it in the bathroom to see what it looked like :)

Chris working on getting the sheetrock up

One of Chris's favorite jobs - mudding! "Do you want me to smile?"

Dad doing the "dry fit" for the floor tile

Ready for some grout

Next up? Some paint, that's where I come in

Pics showing the paint, floor, vanity. We had returned the vanity top by this point since it didn't fit

We decided to tile the shower. That wasn't the original plan, but looking at the price for the shower surround made us decide that it would be worth it to tile it. Luckily for us, my dad has done some tile work before (honestly - not a lot of experience, but you wouldn't guess it judging by the work he did here) We LOVE how it turned out. The shower is massive!

Close up of the mosaic. So happy with our choice of tiles!

Finished tile work. I think this is just after my dad and I grouted it so it's a little streaky still

So what on earth did we do about our vanity top that did not fit?? It bugged me so much that we were not able to find a top that fit. I thought about it constantly. I came up with a great idea and ran it by Chris. He was not completely on board with it and was a little skeptical (this happens a lot in our house!) I told him what I need to have built and we pieced together some wood that he had in the garage. We threw some sheetrock on it and he left for work for the night. I spent about 1 hour (maybe?) tiling it. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I sent him pictures of it and he was ecstatic about how it looked. He came home from work and couldn't believe how good it looked. I purchased the first bowl from Lowe's and the faucet too. We later returned the bowl after I found "the one" online. I'm so happy I looked for a different bowl!

The tile job I did while Chris was at work. Mosaic is easy to work with. It's harder to grout, but not terrible

The original bowl I purchased. The safety glass green just didn't fit in with our bathroom

The replacement. What an awesome upgrade for about $30 more! So worth it!

The finished project:

Completed shower with glass shower doors

View of the vanity

View into the bathroom

Makeover Monday - Theatre Room

Welcome back to another edition of Makeover Monday! This week we’re talking about our “theatre room” in our basement. No, we are not rich -we are very thrifty/good at finding deals and we are very lucky to have great friends and family that were so willing to help us finish our basement. Last winter, Chris, my dad, me and some very nice friends/family spent a LOT of time and hard work finishing our basement. It’s crazy for me to look back at the pictures to see where we started. I’m breaking the basement up into different rooms (so I have more posts and not 1 huge/long post that people struggle to get through)

Here is what the basement moved in. Please excuse the boxes/crap everywhere!

View into theatre room from the future hallway

View if I was standing in the theatre room and looking into future bathroom/storage

The steps down into the basement - future hallway and bathroom

Looking straight ahead to where the screen will be

Dad and Chris built the wall that separates the bathroom and the living room

Built doorway that leads into future (and current) storage room

Looking straight ahead is where the screen will be. Wire has been run for the future electrical

Sheetrock was put up.

Wall that separates the bathroom and living room. Chris installed all of the trim. The door on the left is the door to our storage room

Ahead is the wall where the screen will be hung

Door into the storage room

Another shot of the wall separating the bathrrom. I don't know what all of the spots on the pictures are. Lighting was not good at this point

We put the screen up!

Shot of the wall with the windows and sliding glass door

We finally got our carpet and furniture! Happy Day! No ceiling or overhead lighting yet

Our compromise for the surround sound speakers - put them in the ceiling! I hated the idea of huge box speakers sticking out from the wall when you entered the room



And now for the Finished Product!!

View from the hallway into the theatre room. Running on the treadmill watching 120" screen isn't so bad ;)

View from where the treadmill is. That's the storage room in the corner

View from where the storage room door is. LOVE our sectional. It's amazing for sleeping watching movies/TV

View from the corner. Storage room door on the left, my bed the chaise and the hallway (tan color on the right)

View of the screen straight on

All in all I could not be happier with how it turned out. We are so lucky to know people in the trades. We would not have been able to afford to do this without knowing who we know. My husband did such a great job with everything. There were a LOT of times I think he wanted to give up, but he kept going and now we have a great 3rd level of our house to hang out in. We started our project in October 2010 and finished at the beginning of April 2011. 

Happy Monday, hope everyone had a great weekend!