The Basement Before and After

I’ll do a separate post about the long, arduous process. There was a lot involved. The basement deserves two posts. At least two posts. Here’s one.

The main difference being that I turned the lights on. And that there were lights that could be turned on. And a ceiling. The before photo does a poor job of showing that there was, in fact, no ceiling.

Here’s the other view:

At least this side of the room makes the ceiling situation more obvious. The fluorescent fixtures didn’t totally work. Occasionally they would work, though usually only one at a time. They were vexing, then they were eliminated. Let that be a warning to future light fixtures.

And, yes, I know there’s still blue tape on the window.

More details in another post probably.

bkd

Fake Plastic Rocks

The basement was finished some time in the 1960s. I take it that odd things were in vogue in that time period. Plastic, for instance, was a miraculous victory of man over nature. Similar to TV dinners I imagine.

So the guy who owned this house before I did thought he would really Pittsburgh-up the basement by painting the fake plastic rocks in the basement game room until they looked like this:

It was pretty classy. He did a faux finish with gold and black. He used spray paint. It was pretty classy.

Then this is what they looked like after primer:

The Ikea box really dresses up the room.

Then a couple days of fake rock and grout painting later…

…and we’re back to 1960.

Painting the grout was irritating and sloppy. I need to still go back and touch up the rocks. The rocks are “white clay” and the grout is “chocolate sprinkle”. I don’t choose the colors by the names.

bkd