Looks great! I cannot wait to see the finished space. It is going to be gorgeous! I bet you can hardly wait!

Your basement is nicer than my home's living area! :-)

Thanks, akillery, and good try, my3dogs, but I've seen too many pictures of your beautiful home to believe that! The brick floor is going to be the major design element, and I am anxiously awaiting the start of that install. They are estimating three weeks to lay it, as the mortar between the joints is going to have to be piped from a pastry bag. That process should be interesting, to say the least.

Looking good!

Beautiful basement! The brick floor sounds fabulous - I can't wait to see that. Do you have full walkout? I can't really tell from the photo, but it looks like you have a lot of natural light - how nice!

Yes, it is a full walkout. The ceilings are 10' high in the room at the bottom of the stairs and another large room (23' x 12' with a bump out at the end that is 15' wide). That drops to 8' 6" in the back room, a decision that was made in order to leave plumbing, gas lines, water lines, and HVAC chases in place. To my relief it has worked out just fine--- the drop actually defines the areas without walls, and the lower height is fine because the room span is 30', which looks spacious because of the length. The 23 x 12 room cannot be seen in this photo, it is behind a door to the right of the light colored door and is my husband's home office. Including his room, this area totals 1300 square feet, about one third of the basement area total. The rest of the basement on this side is used for storage. On the other side of the house where a new wing was added about 20 years ago, a back staircase ends at a small hall that connects the garage with the patio, and includes a storage closet and a wine cellar. This area is also getting brick floors after the current projects are finished. They are currently tiled in a sort of slate look quarry tile.

Brick floors are a favorite of mine and the paint color you've chosen is perfect. I lean towards warm colors always. Have you shared what it is?

That looks like it is going to be wonderful (already is!)! So jealous of those lucky ducks that get to utilize their basements for additional living space!

Brick floorâ¦wonderful!

Arapaho..,,we haven't chosen the paint color yet. The yellow you see to the right is Benjamin Moore Golden Straw, which is the color of this space pre-renovation. IRL is is much yellower, almost lemon-y, instead of the pale gold yellow it is in another room upstairs. I am currently waiting on ID to present paint colors. I have a work project going on at the moment that is sucking all my time down a black hole, and have also simply acknowledged that he (designer) does a better job than I with his access to different companies for fabrics and accessories, and his ability to pull everything together. So I am basically waiting for him.

I'm so envious!! Beautiful addition to your lovely home. We have a basement that is long overdue for an update, and I would love to have those gorgeous high ceilings. Lucky you!! Can't wait to see the finished product :)

The basement looks great, and I can see why you are getting excited! I love all the angles. Adds character. Can't wait to see the floor. A pastry bag, huh?!

You must find a new word to describe this part of your home. It certainly seems like much more than the image I have of a basement.

Yes, a pastry bag ;-) it sounds ridiculous but you cannot float grout or mortar on top of bricks and wipe it away because brick is so porous. Plus, we are paying extra for bricks that already have white lime on parts of the faces, lol!

Those angles are made by the staircase, we pushed back the door to create more room--- that area behind the stairs was a sort of vestibule between the front room and the hallway behind it, all of which are now gone. The area under the stairs will house game and movie components on a built in shelf that will be open at the wall on the other side. From the front room the unit will be a framed opening in the wall of 20" x 48", with the actual shelves projecting into the closet. I am going for a leaner look, which is why I didn't want a low console there for the xbox and controllers.

I agree with K.

We used to call it a "screened porch" at our last house until a visiting friend dubbed it a verandah, and it remained so ever since!

I refused to call the only room in the house with a TV, a "TV room". It was the "family library" (DH already had a library).

I think you should call it the SousTerraine from now on!

What's a little marketing among friends!

I should show you my basement so you can see that the term is completely non descriptive in your case. It's going to be just lovely!

Haha Kellienoelle, I was thinking the same thing. I'd call it the lower living level. It looks nothing like a basement and better than most homes. You must be over the moon.

Sousterraine, I could probably sell that to DH, as he has always had a strange affinity for underground houses. Never properly grown up, he dreams of calling "up, periscope!" whenever the doorbell rings :-)

I have to admit I am pretty excited, the GC called to tell me the bricks will be delivered Friday! Maybe we should call it the terrace level, or the brick room, lol!

ID replied that he would love to use rattan table downstairs. Mine is about half the size of the one below. (I had a matched pair but one was damaged beyond help when we moved from another state.) They are not easy to place in a room as they project out at the bottom quite a bit, there is a considerable outward slope to the "skirt." I am hoping we'll use it as a sofa table in the larger room, where it will be seen it as we walk in.

Love it. Can't wait to see the finished pics with the brick floors.

what a cool table

Ironically they make one with a tv raising mechanism! I bought mine before Soane bought the workshop where they were made, they have gotten somewhat pricier but same guys still make them or so I understand.

It looks beautiful! 10 foot ceilings! I would not know it was a basement, except for the title of the thread. So light, so airy, you don't even miss the windows on the one side. Let's dub it, the "rez de chaussée" (yes, I know technically it is the wrong word in French, but lets work with it)

kswl, it looks fantastic! I am having major basement envy!

BethP

10' ceilings and natural light in your basement - lucky! You are inspiring us. It looks beautiful and I am looking forward to seeing the brick work.

Question though - where do you keep all of your usual basement 'stuff'? We have 8-9' ceilings and lots of natural light and lots of space filled with WAY too many tools/crafts/projects...

Old bat, we have about 2900 square feet of unfinished basement that is not part of this project.....it is massive storage....at least 50 boxes of Christmas stuff. And some of it is organized in my own little storage village:

With apologies for being so anal (I do refrain from this most of the time now), just want to correct the French. You could call it the souterrain (underground) or the sous-sol (basement), but not sousterraine.

Whatever you call it, it is looking wonderful!

You are right, cyn, my French is so rusty now it is full of holes! Thank you, though--- and I have decided what I DO want to call it.... Le Finished Basement!

This post was edited by kswl on Wed, Feb 5, 14 at 20:38

I can well imagine, kswl! Won't be too much longer from the looks of it.

Non non non, c'est le sous-sol fini!

The basement (I mean lower living room) is to die for!

I admit I have a question about your storage area. What are those white frames made of. Do they support much weight? Where did you get them from?

Thanks,

Carol

They are from Bin Warehouse, I ordered them online and they are heavy duty PVC. They come predrilled with all hardware and fittings. I purchased the sterite brand bins to fit at local walmarts--- scouring several for the number we needed. The racks clearly state they are to be bolted to the walls. However, we did a dry run and the stuff we are keeping is pretty light, I guess, because they are stable, as long as we out the heaviest bins on the bottom. So we arranged ours in aisles. I keep family heirlooms that I'm not using but don't want to donate, like my gm's jewelry box, small lamps, my daughter's American a Girl doll collection, special baby clothes, travel items needed for very far away places, Halloween decorations (our kids came by their love of Harry Potter honestly, Halloween has always been a big celebration around here, lol), and various other things. Most of the Christmas stuff is in another area dedicated for just Christmas.

Can you come and do my basement when you're done? It's really beautiful! You can help me organize too...you look like a pro!

Beautiful basement and very neat storage of Christmas and other items. You have a right to be proud and crowing about this. I would be heard 3 miles away if mine looked so good.

Beautiful basement and very neat storage of Christmas and other items. You have a right to be proud and crowing about this. I would be heard 3 miles away if mine looked so good.

Patricia and Joanie, thanks! That photo was posted in the basement forum and I now see it anytime I am looking for storage containers online, lol.

Oh, I covet the storage. I cannot wait to see the brick floors but that stoarge, be still my heart.

I never thought about it, but why would someone build that much underground space? Wouldn't people typically have made a smaller basement, and the rest slab or crawlspace? Did you build the house?

I love brick with lime, that should be sublime. Or sous-lime.

We did not build the house. The land slopes towards a half acre pond and a creek, so we have a walkout basement. The foundation walls are poured concrete all the way around, so the size of the house upstairs (above grade) equals the size downstairs--- roughly. Because a new two story wing was built about 10 years ago and was attached at an angle, there is actually more room down than up. Believe me, I would never have built a house with this many footprint jogs and rooflines. My "ideal" house is a low country style, story and a half, slightly raised cottage on a crawl space with a continuous hip roof!

Gorgeous!!! Can't wait for the full Before-and-After photos!

I too admit to serious Lower Finished Level (LFL) envy ... and that storage room should be featured in a magazine! :)

All you need is a Party! :)

I say we have a virtual party when it's finished!

Another update: have now decided to rip out corner FP and tv cabinet instead of trying to retrofit for a wide flatscreen. Instead, we are going to have built ins covering entire wall to left of existing cabinet (which will be gone). This will now be a 12 foot wall of built ins with one large area for the movie screen, will incorporate a fireplace, and the seating will now face that wall. Spoke to interior designer who is delighted with this plan and is going to design the wall in a similar manner to the bookcases in the library, which he designed when we moved in 8 years ago to fit around my old spinet piano. This is going to push back completion date, but am excited about getting it done right.

The basement is wonderful. I love a nice basement..but when I saw your storage, it made me feel like I should go clean my storage areas!

How sublime!

That picture never fails. It's funny.....trends, colors and tastes change, but good storage is forever, right?