I honestly wasn't sure we would ever use this part of our house "for real." It was about as basementy as a basement can get (don't let the carpet squares fool you, they are only there because the cement had been painted an atrocious rusty red color that got ALL over your feet and tracked through the entire house like a bloody serial killer, so we had to cover it with something ASAP.) Pre-kids, it was only used for wood projects, drinking games, and late night karaoke. It was not a place I wanted to rest my eyes on in the sober light of day. But having kids makes it quickly necessary to utilize every single square inch of your house, lest you be overrun by toys in every room. So that's why this (1st picture) became this (2nd picture). I obviously knew I needed some improvement to the walls, so my first thought was to just slap paint on them. However, after lots of late night reading about painting cement, I realized it wasn't actually going to be that easy. The surface would need to really be prepared, including scraping any existing paint, and it was very flaky and disgusting, even for me. Drywall would have been the natural choice, but I don't know how to drywall and I also didn't really want to learn, and it also sounded expensive...I had convinced Dave that I could do it for $400 and I was bound and determined to do it. So here's the scrappy girl's drywall solution: I bought some wooden strips and literally glued them (with this incredible glue that's made specifically for concrete) straight to the walls. Then I took giant sheets of hardboard (it's so cheap and lightweight and wipes down like a dream) and just nailed it onto the strips. After all the walls were covered, I covered all the seams with a little piece of trim board with finishing nails. That's it! We put some $17 indoor/outdoor rugs on the floor (similar to this) which my mom eventually sewed together by hand, bless her. We even cut one down to use on the staircase which has held up amazingly. I can't even tell you how much we use this space, and I can't believe we ever used to live without it on a daily basis. As you can see from the pictures, it's been through many configurations already and has served our phases of life so well. It is our remote school room, our art room, our playroom, our music room, and the workbench is even tucked away in one of those corners, so we can still access it. A renovation worth every penny of the $400 we put in.
5 Comments
Liz Toothaker
4/23/2021 05:55:02 am
Hi Anna, Aunt Nancy just put me on your blog. I’ve read them all and must say, I love it!!!!
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Anna Patterson
5/7/2021 07:53:39 am
Oh that makes me so happy! Thanks for reading them! Of course, I'm sure you did plenty more "scrappy" things than I do (like making bread by hand and washing baby diapers by hand, haha)
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Kate B
5/31/2021 06:43:16 pm
Anna this is incredible!! Very inspiring. Nice work!
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5/31/2021 07:58:47 pm
Hey Kate, thanks!! It's been so fun. I can't believe we ever lived without this square footage!
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3/9/2022 11:44:23 pm
The kids would definitely love this. Thanks for sharing!
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