When we bought our home, the basement was unfinished, but we knew that we wanted to finish it some day.  Since our house is a ranch home, finishing the basement allowed us to double our square footage.  Before we finished the basement, it only was used for storage and a space for my workouts.

We began the process of finishing the basement during Winter 2010.  As much as we like to do the work ourselves for most of our projects, this was not one of them.   We chose to hire a contractor for our basement project.  It took him and one other laborer about 4 months to complete the entire basement.  Bob and I worked closely with the contractor to create a design that worked for us.  We wanted a very open family room, a bar area, a workout room, an office/music room and a bathroom. Now, we have just we wanted and envisioned for our basement, and the only part Bob and I had to do was paint!

This is the view of the family room area from the bottom of the steps.  The one door you see is to our storage area.  I use it for my seasonal decor, paint, and we keep our patio furniture in there during the off-season.

To the right is a small dining area.  I imagine it would be a great game space too, but we haven’t used it for that purpose yet.  This area is full of my DIY projects.  The table and chairs used to be painted blue – I searched for a before picture, but it was long before I thought of blogging.  It is my one successful staining project though.  The chairs were also the first ones that I reuphostered.  The small side table was a $5 craigslist find that I painted.  And, the wicker chair was free from a friend and I just made my cushion and pillow.  There is a matching footstool that you can’t see that I got for 10 cents and reupholstered as well.

The bar is to the left of the dining area.  From the very beginning, we imagined a bar in this space and we are so happy with the final design.  It just needs a back splash, which will be one of our upcoming Fall/Winter projects.  We bought a beautiful glass tile for it this year, we just need to find time to install it.

This is the view from behind the bar into the dining area.  The door you see on the far left is to the storage/furnace area.  The two open doors are the bathroom (left) and workout room (right).

I originally didn’t want a bathroom in the basement, mainly because we have three upstairs!  But, I am so glad we added it.

The workout room is quite a change from what I used before.  To take the picture, I had to stand in front of the TV, so that is the only part you cannot see.

This is the view from the sofa.  Bob and I saw shelves similar to this in a magazine.  The shelves weren’t used for a television in the magazine, but we shared it with our contractor and he customized it to fit our needs exactly.  He also added the idea of the cut-outs on each side to give it more definition.  And, just to orient you more, the door on the left is to the workout room.  The door on the right is to the Office/Music Room.

The Office/Music Room is Bob’s space.  We used to share the office space in one of the upstairs bedrooms, but when we finished the basement, Bob made this  his space.  He can play away and I can just barely hear it upstairs.  Plus, I took over what used to be the office upstairs and made it my craft room.  I’m trying to wrap up some projects in the craft room and then I’ll share pictures of it with you.

 You’ve already seen this corner, it is directly outside of Bob’s Office/Music Room.

So, that is the tour of our basement retreat.  How do you use your basement?  Or,  do you even have a basement?  My first home didn’t have one, so I had to use the attic for all my storage there.