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Our Basement Renovation

It’s safe to say that Rob and I love our house. We loved it the minute we walked in and over two years later we still love it! The house was dated but in excellent shape, which meant that nothing needed to be renovated, but we had a lot of opportunity to make it our own and –hopefully — increase its value in the process.

Over the past couple of years year we’ve done some little changes: painted a couple rooms, re-stained our bannisters, put up floating shelving, etc. A few bigger projects were also accomplished, like redoing Rob’s office and upgrading our walk-in closet (which is still in progress…). And of course my home office, which is almost ready to share on the blog! But the two biggest things that needed to be done were the kitchen and the family room in the basement. I mean, just look at these “before” photos:

Basement Renovation_0001

A gorgeous shade of orange, right? And that panel board! Needless to say that room remained empty from the day we moved in until the day we brought a maul down there to start tearing it down. The first swing (which was by me, and it just bounced off the impressively solid shelving) took place right after Christmas 2013. And now it’s finally done!!! With the exception of hiring an electrician, Rob did all the work himself, with huge thanks to his buddy Sam, who lent tools and was invaluable while building the ledge stone wall and putting up the ceiling. So here it is: our basement!

So it’s not quite finished (I’m very indecisive when it comes to photos), but it’s just about there! To be honest, it’s been done for a few months, but we finally got the canvas and just hung the gallery wall this past weekend. Working on a budget and doing everything yourselves really slows down the timeline, but it was so worth it! Now the rest of our house just has to catch up!

Construction materials (baseboards, drywall, spotlights, etc.): Home Depot
Fireplace: Canadian Tire
Paint: Behr (Amazon Stone, Wine Tasting)
Carpet: Moon-rock by Mohawk
Sectional: The Upper Room
Cabinets: Ikea (Hemnes)
Ledgestone: Rona
Chest/coffee table: Family Heirloom
Dresser: local used
Canvas (Rockies): My image, printed with Picaboo
Canvas (Abstract): Home Sense

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Ottawa, Ontario