A Month is Better than a Year (Or Two)

June was an incredibly busy month for C and me. We moved to Minnesota mid-month, and spent a week in our new home doing the menial setting up tasks like replacing light bulbs and door knobs, cleaning, and setting up all our utilities. After a week and setting up our renovation game plan, we had a pre-planned 2 week vacation with family at the beach which was a welcome reprieve after all the stress of moving.

Before we left though we did finish updating one room in our home, our basement!

On the left is our before of the basement and after is with our furniture and set up after.


The house that we're renovating is actually the house my grandparents built in the 1960's when they moved from Northeast Minneapolis to one of the close in, first-ring suburbs of the Twin Cities. It was immaculately kept when my grandparents lived here, but for the last few years, my family had renters in the property who didn't really take care of the place. We're lucky that it was so well kept before them, and that the house has such good bones. But, since the place hasn't been really updated and we've got some repairs, our work is cut out for us in this house.

Our basement is half finished and on the left you can see what it looked like before. The floor was indoor/outdoor green carpet (which ended up serving as our underlayment for the laminate we chose) and the green cinder block walls. The other side of our basement has a full bath, laundry, and larger workbench and space for C's tools.

We chose to paint the walls white with a moisture sealing paint since it is our basement and the light color would make the space feel larger. We also went with a light flooring option because our furniture is dark and again, we wanted the space to feel larger and brighter. We are fortunate that the windows in our basement provide a lot of natural light.

C and I love how this space turned out! We planned this area as a social space for friends and family. On the side along the staircase, we're planning to build a bar. Additionally, the fireplace and large amount of seating make this a really cozy and enjoyable space for us. We can't wait to have company in this are of our home!

Since getting home from vacation, we've been diligently working on painting and flooring our first floor. We may have had the worst carpets of all time and we're thrilled to be rid of them. My next home update will be a walkthrough of our renovation of the first floor. Thanks for reading!