When we bought our house, the basement was already finished as a playroom. The original plan for us was to convert the space into a living space for my father. This was actually one of the main reasons we bought this house, there was an ideal set up for a basement living space. We did the whole conversion and then my father decided not to live with us. The space sat vacant for the past year, until we decided to get an Au Pair. Since this would be the perfect space for her, we hurried to complete the renovation. Overall, this presents as a large studio apartment with areas for a bedroom, living room and kitchen.
Originally, the basement was set up as a playroom/game room. (previous owners set up). The door you can see in this picture leads to our electrical box. Not super exciting, I know.
This space became the bedroom. You can see that we added a closet on the right side.
This dresser was a consignment store find that I transformed with some paint. The mirror we have been lugging from city to city with us but I realized, we had never used as there was nothing to hang it with! I gave it a quick coat of the dresser paint, added a wire in the back and now we have a dresser set.
In front of what is now the bedroom used to just be space.
We converted this into the living room area.
We added a full bathroom where there previously was a utility room. This is probably the biggest improvement in terms of re-purposing the space.
The door behind Ben was bi-fold and led into this…
Oh lovely. A shot from a different angle (and way better lit)
Yup. Utility room. We retained part of the utility room, the part that housed our heating system. We added a washer and dryer to that part (sorry no picture. I’m sure you can visualize. It’s a washer and it’s a dryer. But the front half of the space we transformed into this:
We also upgraded the door 😉
Finally, we tackled the kitchen space. We took a space that formerly housed a ping pong table.
And created this (you can use the window for spatial reference):
And the dining nook at the far end:
Josh and I painted everything ourselves. We used some furniture that had been left behind combined with a few pieces additional pieces we picked up over time. The kitchen is Ikea and I am forever grateful to a local handyman who helped us put it together with missing pieces and virtually no directions (thanks Ikea-ugh). Pictures on the walls are Homegoods, my favorite store. The most expensive single piece is the sconce in the bathroom which is from Restoration Hardware. I purchased it as a splurge to create a look we had been coveting, but it may be a bit out of sync with the rest of the setup.
Overall we are really happy with the transformation. What do you think?
PS. I just realized the previous owners and we both have the same grey Ikea rug in the space. I guess the basements screams “Put an Ikea rug on me!”