The Big Reveal

If any of you watch the channel HGTV (of which I am a regular) you know they have a show called "The Big Reveal".  Also - any show you remotely get into - you 

just HAVE to stay to the end because you want to see the end results.  I have been waiting to post these because I wanted to have a good result.  We are just about there.  We still have some touch up painting and some work in the bathroom - (mirror, shower curtain, art work, towels etc...) Plus we still need to hang shelves in all the closets - th

e priority being the toy closet. 

We brought down the living room couches about a week and half ago after Daniel got his new Audio Visual equipment set up.  My parents are giving us their family room sofa and love seat to use while they are in Africa so we'll put those up in the living ro

om.  Just two days ago we started bringing down the boxes of completely mixed up toys and now we are in the sorting stage.

Ok so here's the BIG REVEAL - we just love it and can't wait to be all moved in!!

BEFORE:

This is now in the toy room.  The big cut out corner is now an electrical closet and the toy closet.

After:  The two doors to the closets.

Before:  The rest of the playroom.  The water valve you see here on the edge of the picture is now covered by a steel door.  

After:  If you were standing at that desk looking the toward the camera view point - you would now see this:  Next to the steel door over the water main there is a small closet.  The little door in the wall is the access to the storage under the stairs.  This room has two entrances, both pocket doors.  One is to the right of the bottom of the basement stairs.  The other is behind the basement stairs - seen here.

Before:  This is standing right behind the basement stairs looking thru the door into the playroom (seen above).  To the left (under the stairs is our old fridge) - to the right is a wall of kitchen cabinets for storage and a small sink and countertop.

After:

Before:  After walking down the stairs and turning to the left.  If you turned around and looked behind you would have seen this.  Where you are standing is now the family room.  The back corner on the right with the little upper window is now the sewing room  If you look straight back - that area became the bathroom.

After:  Here you can see the bathroom door.

The bathroom:  In the little closet is the sewage ejector pump.  They had to dig down about 3 feet thru the concrete foundation of the house to insert the pump.  What they thought would take a couple of hours took 2 or 3 days because instead of dirt they ran into granite and had to get a jack hammer to remove the rock.  They built a wooden cover over the pump so when you open the closet it appears that the floor of the closet is about  2 1/2 feet high.  I will hang 2 shelves in the upper space for linens.  

It has a stand up shower...

And a small vanity.  Still need to touch up paint and add mirror and accessories.  But it is really nice to have a potty downstairs and to have the extra shower for company.  When we had Taffy's family here this spring it was kinda tight on shower space but now we got room - so come on back!!!

Across from the kitchen cabinets is the sewing room.  I have double pocket doors so that I can have a big opening.  I wanted the room to feel open and allow me to hear, see and interact with my kids while they were playing.  But yet I needed some doors to shut when we might have little visitors over.  This room still needs some trim painting.  I can't wait to move all my stuff in here and get started sewing again.  I haven't done anything since school got out for the summer.  Now that I have 3 of them in school for at least part of the day, I hope to get started on some new projects.!!!

Before:  when you walked down the basement steps you would see this.  

Now when you look down the stairs you see this.  The door is to my food storage closet (which also needs shelves).  You can see above where they chalked in red the outline for the food storage closet.

Before:  We left the freezer and current shelves right where they were.  This picture shows the wall they are on further to the left.  The door is to the steps to the outside bilco doors.  This is the area we left for unfinished storage.  You can see where they stopped framing.  That is now...

...this wall.  The door closest is the food storage door that you see from the top of the stairs.  The other door is to the unfinished area.

Before:  This is the area again to the left of the bottom of the stairs that became the family room and sewing room.  This pretty pole is now framed out into a column.

After:  They also moved the wall back 18 inches on the left side of the stairs and cut out a triangular opening.  This has made a HUGE difference in the feeling of openness downstairs.

The sewing room is thru the window.  Daniel thought I was a little "hokie" wanting a window in that wall, but if and when I am working on a project in the sewing room I want to be able to hear and be part of the conversation or movie going on in the other room.  Plus it will be a great asset when my boys start to bring their "friends who are girls" over.  You never know when mom might be peeking thru that window.   :)