Our new basement

living area/ Damien's office

living area/Max's play area

Damien's office area

my arts and crafts area

Max's play area

Max's play area detail

This has been a long time coming.  Well, not that long actually, since we only bought the house a little under a year and a half ago.  But the first thing we said that we were going to do when we bought the house was to finish the basement.  We got the $8000 first time home buyer money and figured that would be the perfect way to spend it.  Then we realized that we wanted to buy our own furniture, since we had always had hand-me-downs in each of our apartments.  After we bought all the things we needed in the house, we had some money left over and decided it made more sense to put it into savings.  Fast-forward a year and we got the best/biggest surprise, we were having a baby!  Now that was the new catalyst for finishing off the basement.  Our house is the perfect size for Damien and me, and we could easily fit an infant here with us, but we knew that we would be outgrowing our new home fairly soon if we did not add on some extra space.  We went and applied for a small personal loan, and within 5 days, construction on the new basement began.

I am ashamed to say that we did not take any before pictures, but let me paint a picture for you.  Concrete floor and walls, dirty, damp, with one outlet was what we started with.  A little under 6 months later, we had added on a whole other level of living space.  Since we had a good friend do the work, we were able to change and add things as we went along.  We really got to customize it the way we wanted it and I am so happy with the results.  We wanted to make sure that we had space for Damien to have a dedicated office area.  We also wanted a second living room area and a nice place for Max to have his toys and stuff.  We added in the chalkboard later on (it actually hides the fuse boxes) and we plan to have people write messages to Max once he is here and they come and visit!  I also wanted an area to do some creative stuff (right now I am working on part of the favors for my baby shower; can't wait to share what I am making!) Other than that, we knew we needed storage space, and ended up with 3 great closets, and we didn't want clutter.  So we left a good portion of it unfurnished, which is nice and open.  We still have some logistics to figure out, mostly with wires and what to do with them, and we have to tackle a few other odds and ends, but it is certainly livable now and we are loving it. These are not the best photos, but Damien is extremely busy right now doing photo jobs and I figured I could post a few snapshots until he can do a better photo shoot.