The Man Cave

Vernie’s basement was kind of a “danger zone” when we bought the house. One of the walls had caved in due to drainage. Fortunately for us, we had the repair of the wall worked into our offer on the house.
Even with the wall fixed, the basement left a lot to be desired… Here are some before pictures – taken during the buying process.

We knew that we wanted this room to be a place we could use as a second living area so we were determined to “finish it” the best we could for the time being.



First came the clean up phase. Joe, his dad, and my dad tore out the drop ceiling, took the shag off the stairs, tore out the wall paneling, and power washed the floor.


Lucky for us – while we were on our honeymoon Joe’s dad painted the exposed ceiling all black and my dad painted the floor with some concrete floor paint to help get us started!


Our next step was to dry-lock the walls so that we could start the process of creating our brick floor.


Once the walls were primed we geared up for what would be a very tiring project! Joe wanted to create the look of a “pub” in the basement and thought that a brick floor would be really cool looking. I was skeptical at first, but really happy with the results. Because we had an older house the floor does have some cracks in it, meaning that a solid color paint on the floors would make them very visible.


Joe found these brick shaped sponges online and we selected a brick colored floor paint to use.


Now for painting the bricks.


We started at one end of the room and worked our way to the other over the course of two days.


Using a chalk line we would measure the width of the “brick row” and snap our line.


After dipping the sponge in our paint we worked our way down the line, carefully spacing the bricks about ½ and inch apart. To create the illusion of stacked bricks we did cut a sponge in half to use on the odd ends so that we could stagger the lines.


Once the bricks dried Joe went over the entire floor again with a protective coat of clear “paint” to seal it all in. Instead of studding in the walls and sheet rocking, we opted to just paint the concrete for the time being.


We finished just in time to host our first get together at the house in honor of St. Patrick’s Day!

Nowadays the basement is looking more like this. We enjoy watching movies, games and playing video games down here. Joe also has a great spot to house all of his barware and accessories! We do need to paint that newer air duct and wiring to match the rest of the ceiling sometime soon.

Full Bath - Tile Work and Finishing Touches

*This is a previously published post. I think I am finally done fixing links!

After demo came the tile work. We opted to do the same tile on the floor and around the shower. We hired our friend Justin to do the tile work for us – and it was worth every penny! My favorite thing is how Justin took the tile all the way up to the ceiling. I think it makes the tub feel so much bigger!

Joe then installed the shower head and new bath faucet. The finish in this bathroom is brushed nickel.

Once the tile work was complete, Joe and Tim worked to install new sheetrock on the walls and fill in the gap left by the doorway to the other bathroom. Our shortcut/tip here was that we used ¼ inch sheet rock and installed it over the old sheetrock where we could to eliminate some work.


Then Joe’s least favorite part of taping and mudding….(Don’t have pics of this part!)

Plumbing access. This proved to be a challenge. Tim (Joe’s dad) found this handy dandy panel at HD. It looks great painted the same color as the wall and allows for access to the water shut off should we need it.
Once the walls were finished Joe primed and painted a shade of blue. We don’t love it. But we haven’t changed it yet. We purchased a new vanity and water saving toilet as well.

The final “after” did not come until this past summer when we finally got around to finishing the baseboards. What can I say? Having a kid makes home improvement time hard to find!

For the vanity we had to find something wide and thin to maximize the space. This is much nicer to have than the DINKY 14” vanity we had before, and it allows for storage space which is nice.

One of my favorite touches is the new trim around the door and storage nook. I like that it mimics the style of the sink. Joe did a good job finding that! We also found a coordinating tile for the counter in a smaller size.

And there you have it!