The room in need of a facelift this week is the basement living room aka the family room. It's purpose is to serve as the informal living space for entertaining and relaxed fun for my child and his friends. It's also my dog's bedroom because he's only allowed on the first level of the house. Before you start in on me it's an entire floor and his breed has hip issues so I prefer him not to be bumbling up and down multiple flights of stairs. I also don't want the mess that he creates from shedding and drooling all over my home, keeping that level clean is enough work. But back to why we're here, this room needs an upgrade!
Because this is more a recreational space that also houses a dog, my biggest issue with the space is the carpet. It holds odors and big dogs don't always smell pleasant, heck little boys either. So I knew I wanted to upgrade the space with an eating area and mini bar even, so what better an opportunity than to participate in the One Room Challenge. It's not a competition rather an opportunity to transform a space over the span of eight weeks along with other creatives cheering you on. It's also a chance to complete a project within a specified timeframe rather than the pick and choose timeframe us DIYers may have when completing projects around the home.
Keeping my timeline in mind I came up with a gameplan and a schedule because you have to submit weekly progress updates to their site as well. Let's start with the To-Do List first for the space.
TO-DO LIST:
rip out carpet
install luxury vinyl plank flooring
paint
replace light fixtures
build media console
build pub table
build mini bar area
As you can see there's a task for each week to get the space complete in the allotted time.
As you can see from the pictures I haven't done much in terms of decorating the space since I moved in. The room is rectangular with an entry door and lower patio sliding door entrance. Currently, blocked by the couch because I didn't have plans to use that door. The idea that I had for the space essentially became an eating space and entertaining space because I want to utilize as much of the room as I can.
First task was ripping up the base trim, carpet, padding, and tack strips. Initially, I intended on reusing the base trim but my electrician told me I had to upgrade. He low-key didn't have faith that I could really do it, but that's just fuel baby! Because the room is considered the basement the floor is concrete underneath the carpet. It was a pretty simple task to remove the carpet but because I couldn't completely empty the room I had to complete the floor in sections. I had my practice installing he luxury plank vinyl flooring when I completed my closet. From that I learned what to do and not to do. I also did some studying at Youtube University because my flooring choice (Lifeproof Flooring at Home Depot - Dusk Cherry) was expensive and I didn't want to make avoidable mistakes. The biggest things were wall spacing, no seams, and arrangement.
The installation took around 8 hours to complete on my own. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad time. I'm just happy at the outcome because these floors turned out AMAZING! For the base trim I chose three options and put them together. The top is linked here, the middle portion is a standard piece of trim that is 4 in and the base is linked here. This was the hardest part for me because making the mitered cuts for the corners really pushed me! I wasted a good amount of trim trying to get them right but once I figured it out the finished product really elevated the space.
*Flooring Slideshow
How do you like the flooring and trim combo?
Love it!
If you like it, I love it for you!
We'll put a pin in this for next week. My flooring talk got a little long winded. So come back next week for the furniture builds and other finishes that were done to complete the space!