Basement: finished!

When we first started house hunting in Wisconsin last year, we were thrilled to learn that every house had a basement, something VERY uncommon in Texas. As we searched for a home, we always figured we could finish the basement in whichever house we bought to give us a little more room, and especially a place for the TV - we don't love having the TV in the main part of the house. So when we bought our house last September, we were happy that it had a nice, big, long space in the basement. All winter long we planned on finishing it, and back in May/June we finally did! Sadly, I can't find any 'before' pictures. It was pretty much just a big rectangular room with cement walls. Gratefully, the location of the furnace, water heater, and such made it pretty easy to plan the floor plan and closets. Here is the finished product:

This is the stairwell going to the basement - our house is a tri-level. Well, I guess that technically now it's a quad-level home. At first I didn't like all the stairs, but now I like only having to go up 1/2 a flight of stairs (unless of course I am in the basement and going to the top floor). We haven't done anything to the stairs yet. We like the wooden feel, but they are covered with paint splatters. We'll see what we do with them.

This is what you see at the base of the stairs looking left...a cozy sectional, with our treadmill and bike at the other end. If you look closely, on the left of this picture is a door to our food storage closet...

I LOVE this closet. Tons of room for food. Paul even installed a pull up bar to the rafters...that's what the green and purple pull-up bands on the left are hanging from. Our water heater is also in the closet. 

 Going back to the first full picture of the basement, there are double doors at the end with this inside:

The sump pump is also in this closet. Someday, we may move toys to the basement, in which case this would become the toy closet and the weights would move to the food closet.

Here's what it looks like standing by the bike and treadmill...

Inside the closet by the TV and the bottom of the stairs, you'll find this:

Usually the pink bean bag and garbage bags are in here, but they contain toys that are in "quarantine" from our lice infestation :) In here we have camping stuff, decorations, baby stuff, Paul's old physics books, cooking supplies I can't fit in the kitchen, anything else we don't have room for upstairs, and the furnace.

I love having the TV downstairs...it makes a great family room, and it makes exercising much more fun. I also love having real closets so that things are accessible! In Texas I had to store everything in the attic, where it was hot and DUSTY. And food storage was next to impossible since it was too hot to keep it in the garage. Now there is a spot for everything! The organizer in me is very happy.