Tag: Theater Room

Basement Progress: Man Cave

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When we posted about our basement living room aka the Man Cave, we were just getting the trim on the walls.  Well, we’re back to show the recent changes we’ve made to Ben’s favorite room in the house. 

After filling and sanding 1 million and 1 holes, taping and masking off areas, we were ready to start priming the walls, ceiling and trim.  We opted to use a paint sprayer to apply the primer because we had so much area and detail to cover.  After about four hours, we had the entire basement primed, looking like this:

This shot shows the small hallway and stairs. 

We waited 24 hours for the primer to dry and began spraying the ceiling with Glidden’s Bird Song.  Pass another 24 hour, then we taped the ceiling off to use the sprayer and painted our trim Behr’s Vermont Cream.  We removed the tape and HATED the ceiling color.  We decided to paint the ceiling Vermont Cream, too.  After three coats of white paint on the ceiling, crown mouldings, and trim, we were ready to add some color to the walls. 

I had planned to paint the basement living room Restoration Hardware’s Silver Sage, which is one shade lighter than our guest bedroom color.  We had the swatch color matched at Wal-Mart to order 5 gallons.  We started painting shortly upon returning home, but we had major clumps on in our paint.  It turns out, the bucket had been on the shelf past it’s prime, leaving a semi-dry paint clump in the bottom of our bucket.  We returned the paint and got individual gallons.  The paint assistant converted the 5 gallon formula to 1 gallon formula wrong, so the new paint color is in between Silver Sage and Sea Green. 

We were on a huge time crunch, with one week to finish before my due date, so we unpacked our rug and sectional.  This is what our Man Cave looks like today:

The sectional is so comfortable and it can seat a ton of guests.  We still need artwork, cabinet doors and storage, but it’s usable now.

Our 42 inch Insignia TV, which hails from Best Buy was a great buy-on sale because it is last year’s model.  Ben did some internet searching to find the star of the room, his Onkyo 9100 sound system.  He got a great deal because there is a small chip on the back of the subwoofer.  It still works perfectly, shaking the couch during loud action scenes of movies.  Of course, Ben loves it and shows it off to almost every visitor we have. 

We have some finishing to do, like build, prime and paint our sliding entertainment center doors to hide the ugly toys, add shelving and make some pretty storage for DVDs, but all in good time. 

I’m curious to know if we’re the only ones to tackle a project with a short deadline.  Tell me your project and what your deadline was.   The arrival of a guest?  Selling your home?  Or were you having a baby, like we were?

Basement Progress: During

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We’re back to show the progress of our basement.

First, Ben framed in the walls and moved the duct work.  It ran through the middle of the ceiling and tall people hit their heads when they walked down the stairs.  Next,  we started hanging, taping, and mudding the sheet rock. 

The Framing Process:

SHEETROCK!!

Then, Ben laid 20″ square tiles and 6″ square tiles in a pin wheel pattern throughout the basement living room, office, bathroom and landing area.

After Ben (with some help from his brothers) finished sanding the sheet rock, it was time to start adding trim.  Miles and miles of glorious trim! 

We decided to extend our staircase to open up the landing area. 

Basement Progress: Before

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WARNING: What you are about to see is ugly and messy. 

Basement Living Room Before:

Every living room needs an ugly green couch and punching bag. 

My Office Before:

Small Bedroom and Laundry Room Before:

Large Bedroom Before:

As you can see, our basement was almost completely unfinished.  The large bedroom was the first finished room in the basement.  It was completed back in August 2007.  We figured we would need another guest bedroom before V was born.