Our Basement Project and REVEAL!

 We have an open, multi-purpose kind of basement.  We have divided the space in it visually, but without walls.  The spaces also have specific purposes, so our main school "area" is a part of our basement, but not a completely separate room.  I love the large, open feel of it. 

We had water in our basement four times in the nine years that we have lived here.  It is because we live so near to a river and our water table is at the same level as our basement foundation when the ground is saturated, but we did not know all of that information when we bought our home. So, after putting in larger sump pumps and a natural gas powered generator in 2008, we decided this year to have a waterproofing company come in and waterproof our basement.  They chiseled out the perimeter of our concrete floor and put in a new drainage system and an additional sump well, with higher powered sump pumps for all the wells.

Then, we had to wait a month for it to cure.  So, we painted and tried to get things back to a reasonable amount of functionality.

Then we had to move everything back out of the way to lay new carpet and foam tile flooring.  I love the cushy carpet and our new soft sectional sofa! It provides more seating and has more open area in front of it where we used to have ottomans.  There are four recliners in the sofa instead!  We still have poured concrete walls there, so we designed this mural of acoustic panels to help reduce noise and to add flare to our basement TV area!  We also painted the wall behind the TV a dark, chocolate color to be an accent wall.

The exercise area had a new rubber flooring under the exercise equipment.  The rubber flooring fit well together, but was a chore to cut around the edges of our space.  D and I had to work together to get it done.  Now the hard, rubber floor is a better surface for heavy equipment and tough workouts.

 The school area is set up as it was last spring when we re-arranged it.  It feels "new" with the brand new foam flooring and some new bulletine boards above the children's desks. We have room there for a large white board and lots of supplies.  We also have computer work stations for the children.  It is close to the exercise space, and the multimedia space, so we have room to exercise for short breaks during long, winter days and we are just around the couch from using the TV and DVD player when we need them for video lessons. 

We stayed with foam tiles because they provide cushioning, we like the bright colors, and they are easy to clean.  Nine years ago we chose them for the entire basement floor because we had several inches of water in the basement before we even moved in and we wanted to have flooring that could be dried off and used again even if it got soaked!

 

 It seems as though we have been working on this basement since it last had water on the floor in April!  It is so fabulous to have it almost done! We have been able to enjoy some family movie nights again, the kids have been able to invite friends over to play video games or just hang out down there, and we are finally having "normal' school time in the school area.  It's all coming together!  We are excited to be able to use and enjoy this part of our home again!