By popular request...

Sooooo, our basement remodeling project has technically been complete for a little over a week now, but I haven't mentioned that fact here intentionally, as I was really hoping to wait until the entire space was furnished and decorated to absolute completion before announcing the big reveal.

Unfortunately, however, several factors are preventing that picture of "completion" that I have in my mind from actually happening anytime soon. One is, of course, money. We may have inadvertently spent all our available funds on getting the construction complete and now don't have much left over for furnishings. Oops!

Also, our energy and enthusiasm for the whole project kind of petered out over the past couple weeks. We ended up spending every spare minute down there for a few solid weeks trying to get our part of things (i.e., painting, tiling, and more painting) squared away in time for the professionals to do their thing and, in the process, we kind of got sick of being down there amidst the chaos. And even now that things are mostly complete and much, MUCH cleaner than they've been in months (seriously, drywall dust is crazy pestiferous [look that one up!]), we still haven't been able to muster up much motivation for spending even more energy on things like touch-up painting. We'll get it back soon. That drive to just finish the darn thing already will hit any day now...I'm sure of it!

Anyway, I have received multiple requests for photos of the progress, so I figured I'd show you what we've got in the meantime. These photos were taken as soon as the carpet layers left, so it doesn't show the progress that has been made since then (like the TV and other A/V stuff is all installed and some furniture has been moved back in), but since I don't have a camera at the moment (see my previous post), this will have to suffice for now.

Looking down the newly carpeted stairs. Aahhh! We've 

since removed the netting from the banister and no 

longer put up the baby gate. BIG steps for this very-

fearful-of-stairs mom. So far, so good!

View as you first pass through the door at the bottom of the stairs. 

Straight ahead is the bedroom, the french doors to the right are the 

playroom, and to the left is the TV/family room (and lots of dust 

in the air...I told you it was pesky!)

French doors to the playroom, closed...

...and open.

Bedroom, view from the doorway.

Bedroom, opposite view.

Inside the bedroom closet is a pass-through to the A/V
shelving that is accessible from the family room (seen
below).

Office, view from the doorway.

Office, opposite view.

Family room/den. Since this photo was taken, we now have a
MASSIVE screen hanging between those two built-ins, lots of
speakers and a sub-woofer (whatever that is), and a projection TV.
I was not fully aware of just how souped up this basement's A/V
system was going to be at the onset of this project, but it sure will be
a cool place to watch a movie...some day!

Opposite view of the family room. There is now a couch against that
half-wall and some chairs and tables, too. Not our dream furniture, but
what we currently own.

Another view of the family room, this one showing that little A/V
shelving cut-out I referred to above (accessible from the bedroom
closet). I thought Ryan would appreciate this shot since he's pretty
proud of this little design element (all his own!)

View of the kitchenette (and a bunch of random junk). This was the 

floor that we tiled on our own.

Another view of the built-ins in the kitchenette. We have already filled
the space on the lower right with a microwave and eventually plan to
put a fridge on the left.

Opposite view of the kitchenette, looking at the half-wall bar area. We
need to get some stools for this eventually.

Here's that bar again. We added the custom-built wood
topper at the very end to give it a more finished look.
And that pillar was not in the original plans, but was
necessary to support the weight of the countertop. It
turned out pretty nicely in the end!

Hallway off the kitchenette, leading to the unfinished
storage area at the end, and a small bathroom to the
left.

Bathroom. Sorry for the terrible photo. I don't know
much about adjusting the camera lighting. It doesn't
actually look this golden in real life.

Custom-tiled shower. We owned these glass tiles
(which are green, brown, and tan) and were
originally going to use them as our kitchen
backsplash (you can see the alternate direction we
took here), but still wanted to make use of them
somehow. I think they look pretty nice paired with
the biscuit-colored subway tile.