The Basement is FINISHED!!!

After months of blood, sweat, and tears (well no tears, but maybe nagging on my end), our basement is finished. Brian installed the home theater system tonight, so we can officially say we are finished.

In the past few years Brian has completely refinished the entire basement. Other than the glass block windows and some help with the tile floor on the stairs from a friend, he did it entirely himself. He first started off with the workshop area. He put shelving units in, fixed up the walls, and put glass block windows in. Last year, he constructed an office. This had to be done so we could turn the office on the 2nd floor into the nursery. Once we got past the newborn stage (i.e. colicky stage) last winter, he started on the rec room.

The theme of the room is an English Pub. I have been to England twice and fell in love with the country. The last time I went was with my friend Carolyn who is a photo fanatic and took tons of pictures. She graciously enlarged some and matted them for me. When I moved in with Brian, we decided that one-day we could put them in the rec room. Over the past few years we have been building up a collection of items to put in the pub including the bar, wine rack, pub table, and many of the accessories. It was fun taking all the items out of the storage room and seeing what we had.

The room looks great. I do have to say that Brian did a fabulous job. He is very meticulous and it shows. I wish I could say that he gets a nice long break from home repairs, however we have to paint the bedroom that Allison will be moving into and paint the outside of the garage. Maybe I will give him this weekend off since it is Labor Day.

The bar...I can't wait until I can break it in come November.

The flag separates the laundry room. Another room that Brian had to redo. Above the pub table is a clock like you would see at Victoria Station.

Dart area....we discovered last weekend that rubber tip darts still can leave a hole in the wall. We may have to add a cork board behind it.

A cool media storage cabinet we found in a magazine. We had been looking at it for a while, when all of sudden they stopped carrying it in the Signals catalog. Luckily Brian found it again a few months ago.

TV viewing area....after all these years we are finally with the times and have HD and a DVR.