Downstairs Remodel Pictures

Finally, I am taking the time to post pictures of the downstairs remodel.  I just hung a lovely painting above the fireplace.  More accessories are needed, but I will add those as I begin to get a feel for what I want.  So please excuse so many bare walls, and enjoy this little tour with me.  Click any photo to view larger.

Family Room: Here are three views of this cozy room.  I used a flash on the first photo, but not the next two.  You get a fair feeling for daytime lighting and night time lighting this way.  The recessed lights are on a dimmer so I can have the room as bright as I like.  The furniture arrangement is almost final, but needs a little tweaking.

Bedroom: This is my guest room.  I would like a larger window here, but it would require some cutting into the concrete foundation.  I forgot to photograph the big closet opposite the bed.

Laundry: In order to have a bathroom with shower in my limited space, the bath and laundry room needed to be one room.  I learned that the new front loader washers and dryers can be stacked.  This gave me the room I needed to add the shower.  I love this convenient configuration. And the new appliances don't take anything away from the pretty bath.

Bathroom:  For this small space I had a custom vanity built 36 inches wide but just 22 inches deep. The legs are purely decorative for a look that I wanted. But the vanity sits on a box frame so it is easy to clean around.  The shower is two walls of glass and two walls of cultured stone.  I was worried it would be a tight fit, but I have used it and it's just lovely.

 Hallways: A major problem I had in the basement was with door configurations. Where you see two open doorways here were once doors that hit each other when opening. That problem is solved. We added a small hallway into the bedroom bath area.  The bedroom door is to the right as you go in (not seen here).  Straight ahead is the bath/laundry.  And to the left is the new utility room for furnace, water heater, and water softener.  The area that is now the hallway plus the bath/laundry and utility rooms was all one unfinished space before.  This reconfiguration is more convenient and makes so much better use of that space.

 

I had originally posted pictures of the old space here--scary, catch-all, sad.  But I had to delete them.  I found in looking at them, they conjured more than the old ugliness in my house, but also some old ugliness in my life.  I can't do anything about the past.  It's finished.  I have to look forward, focus on the changes in my life and positive new directions.  The changes in my home are certainly symbolic of that.

UPDATE:  Okay, I am putting the "before" pictures back up here.  I've sufficiently recovered from the shock to appreciate the wonderful new space and to forgive myself for how awful it used to be.