Basement Finished!!!

We finally got our basement finished and I finally finished decorating it.  Back in November we took some equity out on our house so we could pay cash to pay off all our debt and also finish our basement and pay cash for it.  We made a budget, got some contractors to come out and give us quotes and got started in January.  The contractor we really wanted and was recommended by a lot of friends was too busy.  We decided to go with a contractor from Home Advisor because there would be a warranty and it was all state/city certified work.  Between picky city inspections and our contractor being so slow and not communicating with us it was the longest process but we stuck to our budget.  We did take the plunge and pay extra for a brand new water heater.  Ours was so old and we needed a bigger one for our bigger soaker tub so we went over budget just for that.

Our contractor started Jan 25.  He told me it would only take him 6-8 weeks but I had heard to add two weeks so I thought he would be done in 10 weeks.  Well the beginning of April came and went and he was no where near done.  It was all the little things that added up.  And they were all mistakes made by him and his crew.  A window ledge wasn't level so we had him fix it, he put in silver doorknobs but gold hinges on all the doors so we made him change out the hinges, he painted every inch of the basement gray so we made him go back and change the doors and trim to white, etc...all these mistakes we would find took him WEEKS to fix so it just drug on and on.  He finally finished the end of May only 8 weeks past the time he should have been finished.  But we didn't have to pay him any more than what we negotiated at the beginning.  We also had a leak in our foundation and had to reroute some water issues in our laundry room and they have been fixed but I guess we will find out if they really have been fixed when winter comes.

Now to what you have been waiting for...PICTURES!!!!  Our basement was our storage room for 6 years and it was filled with junk.  We had to clean it out and we are so grateful for Danny's brother Benny and his wife Kayla for coming and helping.  Now all that junk is sitting in our garage.  I had to park outside all winter it was awful.  Need to clean it out before winter hits again.

We finished our Laundry room.  Sorry this before pic is sideways

 Dry wall up

 Shelves!!!

 New water heater

 So glad we decided to put doors on the utility room to keep the dust and laundry lint from collecting all over the water heater and furnace.  We learned a lot about keeping our utility room clean so we don't have a fire.

 Finished!

We finished a bathroom in the basement.  Had to dig for the plumbing

 We LOVE our new soaker tub!

 New flooring being installed.  Our contractor was mad because he thought we paid extra for wood floors.  He wanted to install linoleum but we found this really nice laminate flooring made to look like hard wood but it's more wear resistant, water proof, and way cheaper.  He was shocked.  I just love all the grays...

 Didn't know what to do with the bathroom window since we knew we didn't want blinds or curtains. Found this cool frosted glass spray and it's perfect.

 Danny didn't like the colors I picked at first for the bathroom so he picked these out.

This is the back end of the basement kind of under the stairs.  

 We decided to put in two closets.  One big one with shelves for all the bins of holiday decorations and other random stuff we are saving, and the other closet has a mini door that leads to the crawl space under the house and the taller part under the slope of the stairs is my Christmas Tree closet.  I hate taking down and setting up our christmas tree so I told our contractor I needed a tall closet I could leave my tree set up.

 Workout area

 Area for the kids

 My Christmas Tree fit in the closet!

And finally the front end of the basement, the main hangout area...

 We got a new couch which we love...and a new big huge TV!

 I had fun decorating some of the walls too...

Now if only we could renovate our entire house to match our new basement...