Basement Update: A corner…

Today I wanted to share a few shots of a little corner of our basement I have rather come to enjoy… with a few simple changes we have added to the functionality of the area in a big way… and it cost us very little to make the changes.

This is what this corner looked like when we started pulling things apart after Christmas to get ready for some painting… Yes I know. It was ca-ra-zy.

This is what that same little corner looks like today:

It feels so bright and cheery for me… because it is in the downstairs, I definitely deviated from colors I would normally choose… for example, you won’t see much pink and yellow around my house 😉 The desk makes that space useful for snooping on pinterest, blog hoppin or book keeping… I can tuck any supplies I need into the baskets, and I have storage for some of my craft items on the over head shelving.

I am really happy with how these shelves turned out. I bought a 10ft 1×8, and had it cut in half. We painted the pieces white and hung them on our $2 ikea brackets… voila! Shelving for less than $20 bucks.

I love plants! These little yellow cuties were a gift from my hubby. I painted the rim of this terra cotta pot to make it a bit more interesting. Not sure what that white line is from though… maybe lots of salt in our water? The pillow in the back ground I love- I found it at a thrift store, pretty much brand new for… you guessed it. $1. The chair you might remember from a summer garage sale. ($4)

This desk cost us $0 to build… we made it out of some plywood from a previous job, and stained it with stain I already had. We played with the idea of painting it white, and then asked ourselves “can you stain plywood?” In the end, I opted for the stain because it is fast, we had it, and it wouldn’t mark up as easily as white paint… I think it worked out well, and breaks things up a bit. We still have one tiny thing to finish… can you spot it?

The memo board is a frame I bought for a $1 with some scrap book paper under the glass. I couldn’t find a white board marker to write a fabulous note though… This was a pinterest inspired project 😉

So that pretty much sums up the “corner” We donated the old tv and unit… and while it was hard to say good bye for about 8 seconds, simply because I always planned to use the tv unit for a DIY purpose other than to hold a tv (it was $5 and I painted it white…) It has felt good to get rid of stuff we don’t need or use. If you are wondering about the tv… somehow my husband convinced me that we needed a thin, new television. For people who don’t watch a lot of tv its kind of funny, but I will admit our dates seem to circulate pretty close to home these days, and if we do watch a movie, its nice to have a clear big picture!

Did anyone else notice my extremed case of price yelling syndrome? $1 here… $1 there….

Hopefully I will get to photographing and finishing up the final touches of the basement very soon! Things feel so different, and we actually enjoy hanging out down there! It was mostly the clutter that drove me craZY…. you can check out my other basement posts here and here.

{another pinterest inspired project}