How to Brighten and Beautify a Basement Space

Well guys and gals, it’s here! The day of the big reveal for the One Room Challenge! It’s been an extra busy past 6 weeks but I’m glad it’s done and am very happy with the result.

As a reminder the finished part of our basement is a rec/playroom for our 4 young kids (ages 2-9). It has been neglected for the past 3 years as I have been single handedly making over the rest of our house (you can see the Before and Afters for the rest of our house Here).

So please don’t be too judgmental when you see the befores (it ain’t pretty)!!

And here are the Afters (please forgive the bad lighting–there is no natural light in the basement)!

DIY Wall Storage System in Basement — In this pic I photoshopped some trim and handles on the storage system to see what it would look like.

My older boys wanted a place they could draw so I found a little green table at a stager’s sale for only $20.

The lamp is from Homegoods and the picture is a DIY I whipped up.

The side table and plant are from my patio. The side table was starting to rust so I will keep it in and the plant needed to come in for the Winter anyway.

The large vase is from Homegoods for only $12 and the pillows covers were DIY-ed. The pink one was made out of an old skirt. You can find out how to DIY the artwork, Here.

I bought the hanging chairs on ebay for $25 a piece and made the pillows for them. I made the large ottoman slipcover out of $5 clearanced drape panel, tutorial Here.

I built the wall storage system for about $100–full tutorial to come. Everything on the bookcases cost between $1-$5 and came from the thrift store, the dollar tree, Aldi or Homegoods.

The TV is our old one that had collecting dust in storage. The rug is actually a leftover carpet remnant that I cut to size and painted (more on that in another post).

I hung a pretty, little chandelier above my daughter’s doll house that I got at Goodwill for only $2.50. I know in the photo it looks spooky but I promise you in real life it’s very pretty and cute, not spooky at all!:-)

A big goal for this space was for it not to feel like a basement.

With the lack of natural light basements can feel gloomy. We had a rec room in our basement growing up and I didn’t like going down there very much (especially alone) because it had dark colors and was poorly lit.

So, for the basement playroom makeover I went really light on the walls (cream-Valspar Del Tequila Coronado, Blue/green accent wall- Behr Melting Moments) and added 6 can lights in addition to the tube lights, the little chandelier, and the table lamp.

Hiring someone to put in the can lights was the biggest cost of the makeover but it was well worth it because the additional lighting really helps the space not feel like a basement as much.

It also helps to raise the ceiling as high as possible. There use to be a drop down ceiling that ran between the bottoms of the two ceiling beams. I took it down and put up a beadboard ceiling which helped open the space up a lot (tutorial to come)!

If I’ve forgotten anything or if you have any questions please let me know. I have found that it often takes extra time and thought to do things on budget but it can be oh so very rewarding in the end!!

I hope you enjoyed this makeover! You can check out the other One Room Challenge Participant’s reveals, Here. Till next time, Friends!!