A Basement Refresh Taking it from Kid Play Area to Teen Zone
Our basement makeover on a budget has been a long time coming! When we first moved into our Connecticut home, our basement was a landing zone for the many many boxes we brought over from Georgia. Having my oldest in high school and my youngest in elementary school, we kept all of our toys and made the basement a playing area for my younger children. It worked great. Our basement was finished when we moved in and had a theater room, which my children love and still use all the time, especially my boys for gaming. Besides setting it up for a playroom, we didn’t really do much. Then my youngest daughter got into gymnastics and then we started to fill up our basement with huge gymnastics equipment, which took up most of the space. And we still had a huge number of toys in bins. As a few years went by, the toys were played with less and less and my youngest daughter grew taller and taller. I knew our basement needed a makeover. But I didn’t want to put a ton of money into it. It needed to be painted. We switched out the carpet on the stairs to wood. Besides a few furniture items and rugs, that was about it. I looked into changing out the carpet. After getting $10K quotes for new carpet that looked very similar to the one I already had installed, I decided to just keep our current carpet and instead get it professionally cleaned. It worked like a charm!
Here are a Few Other Makeover Posts:
- Powder Bathroom Makeover
- Backyard Playset Makeover
- Our Dining Room Before and After
- Kitchen Renovation Reveal
BEFORE
Before we jump to our basement makeover on a budget, here is a before picture right when we were cleaning out all the toys. It was a mess and took a few days to complete the project. It’s amazing how much you accumulate after just a few years.
AFTER
We love our basement makeover on a budget. One of the first things we did was paint the room. We painted it Benjamin Moore White Dove, which is the same color we have in the rest of the house. It’s amazing how the white paint makes the room brighter and bigger. Since it’s one large room, we added area rugs to section off the room. I ordered a pool table for the space, but it was too large to get down our stairwell. We were so bummed! We ended up putting the pool table in our top floor living space (hope to share that space in the future), and instead we kept the foosball table. I wanted to keep our round table for the kids to do crafts or art projects. They also like to go down there to play games or do homework. The living area is a fun spot for them and their friends to hang out. The coffee table has card games and past yearbooks to look through.
I kept two cube bin shelves that are filled with nerf guns, legos and puzzles because sometimes those teenage boys like to have a huge nerf gun battle! Or sit down with a bin of legos to build something.
Most of the furniture has been rotated from other rooms in the house. So I really didn’t purchase anything new except for a few items.
We have a theater room in the basement, which my kids love. They have friends over for movie night and my boys love to invite friends over for gaming. When a huge group of teenage friends come over, of course food and drinks are what they want. I can’t complain, except they would be all over in my kitchen rummaging through cabinets looking for snacks and stuff. So, I decided we needed to have something for the basement. While I really wanted a built-in mini bar, I also needed to keep the budget low. So I decided that a sideboard credenza would be perfect and a mini fridge. I also added an ice maker machine and mini Keurig machine. We have a full bathroom in our basement, so a sink with water is easily accessible. I fill the credenza with chips and cookies and the mini fridge has soda pop and water. The kids like the mini Keurig machine for hot chocolate. It’s the perfect budget-friendly basement bar!
Our sideboard credenza is topped with jars of candy, flavored syrups for Italian sodas or hot chocolate and a tiered tray of healthy snacks. I love the vintage fridge and pebble ice maker machine might be my favorite! Our mini bar is right behind our movie theater so it’s perfect positioned.
We love our basement and hanging out down there! Also, it feels so good to declutter and organize it into a space our teenagers can enjoy!
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