One big renovation...

Do you ever do something and then say to yourself, "Self!  What were you thinking?!?"

Well, when we bought our house four years ago, the finished side of the basement was subdivided into 2 large rooms and a full bath.  Nice!  But once we turned these rooms into living spaces, we realized we needed to make a few changed.  We wanted the two rooms to feel like one -- so we thought we'd take out the wall.  One night, Mr. Lovey and I grabbed our sledge hammers and started pounding away!

And then, Mr. Lovey looked up through the hole in the wall and said, "Uhm... I think this is a load-bearing wall."

"Self!  What were you thinking?"

So we called our friend from church who is a fantastic contractor, and in just a few short weeks he had cut out the holes in the wall, reframed them up, and put in a couple of bar counters for us... We removed the HUGE double doors separating the two rooms and now we have one large space.

The kids' playroom area is on one side (and Mr. Lovey's ping pong table is over there) and our family room is on the other side.

I thought I had more pics of the before rooms, but alas, I did not.  Only one:

This is the first of the two rooms.  I don't know where the other pictures went.  The next room -- through the double doors -- has two full sized windows and a set of french doors.  The bathroom is over on that side, too.

But you can see everything was beige and dark... We knew this room(s) had some potential.

So after a few weeks of repairing the "damage" we did to the "load-bearing wall" our new family room looks like this!

The sofa is from Ashley furniture -- pillows from Target and Walmart.

Across from the sofa is - of course -- Mr. Lovey's television and all the components a growing boy -- uh -- man needs!  Mr. Lovey's uncle custom built the entertainment center for us... Thank's Uncle Kenny!

Here are some of the details:

Oops!  The space heater and my house slippers are peaking out... Well, it's a basement!  It gets cold down there sometimes!

The tables are glass mosaic on an iron base.  Bought them at New Years for $20.00 each.  They were 60% off!  Boo-ya!

Here's the top.  Totally cute!

This sofa table for behind the sofa was from Garden Ridge.  $35.00.  It's not the best quality, but I'm sure one of my children will break it eventually, so it's alright!

And like so many of you, here are the apothecary jars made from elements from the Dollar Store...

So, last Christmas, Mr. Lovey surprised me with one of these chairs for Christmas.  I fell in love with it.  So I decided I wanted another.  Once I saved up the money needed for the match, they went on clearance.  Can you beat that?

The Saturday we went out to get the chair, ALL of the Targets had sold out!  We went to 5 Targets in one day, driving from one end of town to the next, and even across the river into Indiana...

We finally found ONE -- I do believe the last one -- it was a floor demo... It had four L brackets bolting each of it's four legs to the floor of Target...

What's a girl to do?  Find the manager, of course!

She came, she undid the chair, then she discounted the clearance price because it was a floor model, AND it had 4 bolt holes in the legs.

Well, Mr. Lovey can patch those, and I can stain over... No problem!

Guess how much?  $60.00

Love it!


The table was a find from the Peddler's Mall.  $10.00

Alright, this table was my mothers.  She bought it and four chairs at a yard sale for $20.00.  They were bright yellow.  I mean, "Whoa!  Blinded by the Light!" yellow.

Brought them home, sanded them, and painted them black.  Only needed 2 chairs, so got rid of the two others..

The three plaques were a set...can't remember when I bought them, or where, but I LOVE them.

The two little lamps were from Walmart for $5.00 each... Ha ha!

Here's the view from the French doors... If you look closely at that large patch of ice, you'll realize it's really our pond!  Well, our neighborhood pond.  Some neighborhoods have pools, we have a pond.  It's noting to see hoards of neighborhood boys going to the pond all summer long to fish!  It's great!

These sconces were a major GW score.  $5.00 for the pair!  Yeah!

This is some artwork I did with my Graphic Design Software -- the fame was a $3.00 frame with mat from Annie's Attic.

These are the two bar counters.  When we have lots of people over, the "guys" can play ping pong in one room, and the girls can stand (away from danger) on this side, but still see the competition.

Here is a little padded stool - ottoman -- that I recovered.  Okay - I'll tell you the story.

I needed a pair of curtains for the french doors.  But I also needed valances for the windows.  But, alas, I could only find ONE pair.  So I bought the one pair, brought them home, split both full panels into 2 - so now I had four.  I hung two full length panels at the French doors, cut the third full length panel into two valences, and with the left over fabric, covered this bench.

The two panels were on clearance for $6.48.  I covered four windows and a bench for that!

Her's a view of all that curtain work.  I also added two taupe panels beside the teal ones... the just give it a fuller look...

Oh, one other thing to point on from this picture:  The braided wool area rug.  I bought it from Target.  Regular price $234.  My price: $64.

And just a couple extra touches here and there....

There you have it!  The basement family room.  Where we spend countless hours of family time -- playing Kinect, board games, and watching Billy the Exterminator... What can I say, we love Billy!

I'm linking up to a couple parties today --
Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch
and
Amaze Me Monday at Dittle Dattle...

Enjoy!

Only By His Grace,

Billie