so much progress made this weekend – specifically on remodeling the cabinet that has been the bane of my existence in this house.

after figuring out that we can’t remove it because there is no floor underneath it, we decided to get creative. we played around with the floor plan for months, and decided the only way this basement makes sense and is actually comfortable enough to watch movies in is if the couch was against that cabinet. however, pushing a couch against what is obviously drawers looked really strange.

also, i loathed the countertop and the dark wood in this room that is otherwise very, very light.

so, two weekends ago, we painted the room blue. this weekend, we decided to work with what we had and remodel the cabinet. first was the removing of all the cabinet doors and drawers and painting them white, which took three coats:

then, we had to cut our new countertop down to size. we bought a 12 foot butcher block countertop from lumber liquidators and, with the help of various friends, got it from the store and into the house. we owe you all beers. thank you.

since we only needed 9 feet of it, jason got to do some hand sawing.

we contemplated buying a circular saw, but he managed pretty well without it. just look at that satisfaction:

we figured we’d be able to remove the old countertop with just the two of us, but when we lifted it, this is literally as far as we could move it. i predict it weighs about 250-300 pounds. not exaggerating.

but we did manage to get the new countertop in place.

so we had to move onto plan B for the removal of the old countertop: total destruction. jason’s favorite safety supplies were brought out in case shards of tile went flying:

and so we were able to get the countertop out of there in 50 pound pieces. much easier. after it was gone and we cleaned up a little, the cabinet had progressed to this:

you’re probably wondering what we’re doing with the drawers. well, since we didn’t want it to seem like we are just pushing a couch up against storage (which we are), we got rid of the drawers and covered the holes with a wood plank. first it was painted white:

then it was screwed in. unfortunately it had to be done in two pieces, as you can’t buy 9 foot long pieces of wood and 12 feet will not fit into our tiny cars. so we compromise:

we wanted it to look like one solid piece that is part of the cabinet, so a little spackle (don’t worry, it dries white) was needed:

so after all that, here’s what the finished product looks like:

with the furniture back in place, it looks a little something like this:

but let’s take a trip down memory lane. here’s what it looked like when we just moved in:

when we finished painting the walls:

and now:

that was the biggest project we had in here, but there is still quite a long list before we can call the basement done. floors and window treatments being the most obvious:

• for the cabinet:
  • paint it white.
  • we may also get a board that will cover the entire front of the cabinets (and paint that white as well) and make it look like it’s the actual facade. that way, we can push the couch up against it and it doesn’t look strange but still not lose the storage behind it (we’d likely put seasonal and really rarely used items in there, so moving the couch wouldn’t happen often)
  • remove that old countertop and install butcher block counter (we bought that today!)
• decide whether we should paint that door next to the fireplace blue (to match the walls), white (to match the fireplace) or leave it as is
• create a gallery wall of white frames above the cabinet to try to camouflage the fact that the window is off-center and that damn air conditioning unit
• replace all the window treatments with something white, flowy, and with some sort of pattern
• get a big area rug that warms up the place and covers up the linoleum flooring
• get a new coffee table that has storage inside to hide all the blankets (it’s chilly down here)
• get new sconces for over the fireplace
• build bookshelves on the other side of the fireplace (not pictured) and finally get rid of the black bookcases that are at least 15 years old, from ikea, and still standing strong
• hang awesome things up on the walls

3 Comments

• 03 / 27 / 14 / 3:25 pm

  […] we’ve ever had was a 25″x28.5″ piece of butcher’s block counter top left over from our basement improvements. We needed to purchase a 12′ long piece and then shorten it, so we had a good piece of a very […]

  writes The story of our mini picture island - Things I Made TodayReply
• 04 / 03 / 14 / 8:50 pm

  […] Once we re-did the cabinet: […]

  writes The Impact of Rugs and Frames | Things I Made TodayReply
• 01 / 12 / 22 / 4:36 pm

  2exactness

  writes 2despiteReply