Sneak peek of the basement progress. . .

I am so excited about our basement progress.  When a complete overhaul got dropped into our laps a couple of weeks ago, I was majorly depressed....I was overwhelmed by the task in front of us!  


But as my husband and I talked about it, I had to confess that I never really liked the color that I had painted the basement 3 years ago. But, because the room was so large, I would have never voluntarily committed the time or expense to redoing it.


I realized this time that if I was going to repaint such a vast section of room, then I really need to L-O-V-E the color!  I have never bought paint samples before, but this time I decided to "splurge" and spent the extra $12 on 3 sample cans.....

I am SO glad that I did that because when I put the samples up....they looked nothing like the paint chips and I would have picked the wrong color!  (The "messy" looking swatch was my daughter helping....I so should have taken a picture of her in her Crayola smock!)


The other decision that we made was to go with real beadboard.  We would have had to pay someone to professionally finish our drywall seams.  As much as we are DIY'ers at heart, we knew that having a seam that was 12 inches up and ran around the perimeter of the room would be impossible to disguise ourselves.

We figure that the cost to buy the beadboard offsets the cost of the professional drywallers.


Here's a little side-by-side comparison of the red and the gray...

*Do you see that circle on the screen?  That's dust, people.....we were running a fan to try and remove the dust and that's how much is still stuck on the screen...UGH!


The change in color has made a HUGE difference in the feel of the room....it feels larger and more "airy!"  It also is making the room feel a whole lot "classier!"

We still have a long way to go...but I am SO excited at our progress so far!


Now...I'm calling in the "big guns".....my friend, Cheryl.  At some point, I will show you her kitchen makeover.  She has an incredible gift of decorating walls...and she uses inexpensive items!  

I can't wait to see what she suggests!