Rumpus Room Basement Reveal!

It’s finally here! We have been updating our basement for 8 weeks now and I’m so so so excited (and relieved) to share our rumpus room basement reveal. Since this was our first big project in the new house, it served as a great learning experience! Eventually I will share the cost breakdown and source list for everything in the basement, but today let’s just enjoy some before and after shots!

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may remember this post when I talked about camp style decor. That was the inspiration for the look in our basement. Although we haven’t finished decorating, the style I am going for is “the 1970’s went to summer camp.” We wanted to keep some elements of a house built in 1958, like the wood paneled walls, while updating other areas, like the flooring. I hope this rumpus room basement reveal achieves that retro and cozy feel. Here is a very professional mock up of my design plan. As you can see, I’m excellent at technology.

Before

The first two photos are from the real estate listing. The third and fourth photos are what the basement actually looked like when we moved in. There was a giant hobby train set in the back room that the sellers removed before closing and they left tons of dust and debris.

During

There were a lot of steps that went into this renovation. I will cover them more extensively in a separate post, but briefly we:

Changed all the electric outlets from 2-prong to 3-prong
Cleaned and primed the walls
Painted the ceiling
Painted the walls
Removed the half wall from the old kitchenette
Installed water resistant vinyl flooring
Removed the broken wall heating unit
Removed the old plastic trim and installed wood trim
Updated the lighting
Spruced up the wood paneling with Howard Feed-n-Wax
Built a “hearth” around the fireplace
Tiled the hearth

Basement Rumpus Room Reveal!

Now that all the hard work is out of the way, we get to have fun picking out unique things at second hand stores, estate sales, and flea markets. I don’t want too much “stuff” around, but we could definitely use more pillows, art, and pictures. We also plan to take out the wall next to the staircase and rebuild the stairs. They are incredibly steep and covered in asbestos tile. That will happen in phase 2 of the basement remodel. For now, we’re just going to enjoy playing shuffleboard, darts, and old school video games. I’d also like to master a few classic cocktails. Learning how to use my camera and take better pictures is always on the list as well 😉 Come over anytime, friends!