Basement Layout

Some time last year—I barely remember doing it—I put together a sketchup plan for the basement family room finishing. I rediscovered it this week and I've been playing with it, rearranging furniture and trying to come up with a plan so Jeff and I could try and decide what to do.

Right now, our basement is pretty much a cement-lined hole in the ground with a pock-marked drywall ceiling. (The holes in the ceiling were from our remodel when they needed to run new pipes or access existing ones.) I'm hoping we're going to install insulation and some framing with outlets along the cement walls. And a decent floor would be nice. And removable ceiling panels would be wonderful.

This is the general furniture arrangement I'm thinking about, using furniture we already own (except for the TV console).

Side view of Basement Family Room

Rear portion of Basement Family room

Front portion of Basement Family Room

(I actually lucked out and found a Sketchup file for the old World Market Riley bookcase—that we have 6 of! I just needed to find a mahogany finish so I could color them to look more like ours.)

I think we're going to get rid of our existing entertainment center. It's too big and too heavy. The DVDs don't fit very well; some of them fit in the drawers, some don't. And I think we'd be just as happy with a smaller console. So, once we get it emptied, I'll see if I can find someone to take it off our hands. Though, frankly, I've seen a lot of these large size entertainment centers on craigslist lately, so we might just have to donate it to get it gone quickly.

We'd like to finish the floors in cork plank flooring, color TBD. Perhaps this Sand Dune if they have it at our local store.

All the walls, and probably the ceiling, will be painted Hubbard Squash. We have TONS of hubbard squash paint leftover from the upstairs painting project. I don't know what I was thinking when I calculated how much we needed. I must have expected to do more coats, or paint the ceilings, or something, because we have more than 5 gallons left! And that paint was expensive! So, we're gonna use it.

I dropped by the library today and picked up a few books on finishing basements, so now I'm poring over those to see if I can figure out what to do about our uneven floors.