Basement Playroom Remodel Well Underway
The playroom in the basement has begun to be transformed, during the few hours here and there that my husband has found to work on it. Here are some of the playroom photos of the process to date.
At the beginning of the adventure, this was the state of things in the playroom.
As you can see, there used to be a farm mural in the playroom. I painted the scenery and sky, and my mother painted the barn and details around it.
My brother-in-law, with his weird sense of humor, painted this many-uttered Holstein cow (the brand is the Green Bay Packers logo, though that's hard to see here):
The kids had enjoyed playing in the farm playroom, but thanks to the water-dumping AC unit, we now had to rip apart one of the walls, even cutting out some of the studs, to get rid of mold. So the mural had to go.
There had been chair rail around the room too, but now that was gone, and the bookshelves we had installed to hold the toys had been taken out, and the holes spackled.
The carpet was up, the fans and dehumidifier were on to dry out the concrete floor, which had been scrubbed with bleach water.
The next step was painting the walls. Then white beadboard wainscotting was put on three of the walls (Georgia Pacific pre-finished stuff), and the subfloor material was put down over the concrete, the seams taped. On the bottom was a plastic underlayment, Delta FL, which has dimples that allow room for moisture to drain should there be any wetness under the floor.
Then came a black felt underlayment, typical stuff for laminate floors. Then the click-together laminate floor itself. I had suggested we consider installing it at an angle, and although it isn't as straightforward nor as quick as installing the planks parallel to the wall, it gives the playroom a more updated feel, even perhaps more spacious-feeling. Hard to tell that from this picture with some of the playroom stuff finding it's way back into the room, but trust me. Watch for future photos when we get it all done.
A hugely important part of this project was creating smarter storage for toys, books and games in the playroom. Before, we had all open shelving. We shelled out a chunk of change for utiltiy cabinet kits from Lowes (frustrating for their missing parts and poor directions, but not too bad looking in the end), and this is our new playroom storage system:
A flat-screen TV will go in the center, and with the addition of a comfy couch and some old armchairs we have in a back room, this will become a usable home theater, at least for the kids when they have friends over.
So that is the basement playroom remodel as it stands right now. We are simultaneously planning a remodel of our first floor, most importantly the kitchen remodel, so stay tuned for pictures of that remodeling project as it progresses.
