Basement "Before"

Our home was built in the 1920's. It has 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and surprisingly enough a basement that is in good enough condition that we are able to finish it.

The current "Before" picture of the ceiling.

The first thing on our to-do list is to soda-blast the walls, ceiling and floor. We plan on leaving the ceiling "unfinished" for two reasons. One, for accessibility while we continue to replace all the electrical throughout the house. Two, the cost of a drop ceiling is more than we are willing to really sink into this house. And three, we really like the look. After the ceiling is soda-blasted, the 100 year old wood will look brand new.

The second thing is re-pouring the floor and doing acid-etched concrete.

These stairs will be replaced. You can see the original garage doors in the background.

The original garage door.

The original garage for the home was located in the basement. These old doors swing inward and are, unfortunately, in need of a lot of work. I'm not sure what our plan is for replacing them. They are much wider than any standard double-door you can purchase at the local home-improvement store. And we are uninterested in replacing it with an overhead garage door. I will, however, be re-purposing these doors somehow once we figure it out. I love that they are original to the home and I always look at them wondering what the people were like that used them. Did they have children in the car that they pulled lovingly into the garage?

These are just the first of several large projects going on in the basement right now. I'm looking forward to these ideas being completed as well as the extra living space!