From Floors to Walls

Exciting things are happening in our basement! I am starting to see the vision for the finished project. I had something in my mind before, but now it’s really starting to set in. AJ has been kind enough to spend the past couple of nights at our house starting to frame the walls with Tyler. (Since he is just finishing putting up walls in his own basement, he’s the perfect guy for the job.)

                                           

                         

                                        

I threw this picture in to show a little bit of the floor. It'll look a lot better with some walls up.

Our house has been pretty noisy these past few nights with nailing, sawing, and shouts of frustration. It turns out the only thing that is level in our basement is the wall, thanks to the careful work of those guys. But despite the challenging space, it’s coming together nicely—and quickly! The guys have framed one of about six walls, and they accomplished that in just a few nights after working their usual 7-5 (yikes!). They plan to be at it full time this weekend, so we may get a good chunk of the basement framed. Yay!

Naturally while they’re busy putting together the skeleton, I’m moving on to the fun stuff. I’m already jumping ahead to how I want to decorate the walls, where the TV and furniture will be, etc. (I have this problem with wanting immediate gratification—guess I’ll just have to wait this time though.)

Actually, one of the things that kind of made me jump ahead to the wall décor was the fact that our friend Michelle’s mother-in-law was switching her laminate floors out for carpet, and the floors are still in good shape (You’re probably wondering what floors have to do with wall décor, but bear with me). Michelle is eco-friendly and hates to see perfectly good material go to waste, so she let me know about the treasure that would be thrown out. She sent these pictures via text to show me what it looked like put together:

Beautiful, right? Of course I wanted that material! So I talked to Tyler about where we could put it. We already painted the concrete floors in our basement, and we didn’t want the cost of paint to go to waste, so that was a no go. Our living room upstairs is currently carpeted (white), and our pups have broken it in a bit, so I thought maybe up there, but the rest of the floors throughout the house are darker wood, which would make for an odd combination.

So I reluctantly turned down the offer for the free flooring. But then I realized that I’ve seen flooring put on walls before and I think it looks really cool and modern! (I want to make the distinction here between wood paneling and wood flooring on the walls—I am talking about laying the flooring horizontal, which makes a huge difference, and it will be used sparingly.) So I decided we should take it after all. Let me tell you, it is already a battle trying to get Tyler to see my vision. He hasn’t said he doesn’t like it or that he won’t try it, but he’s sure not as excited about it as I am. I even showed him this clip to try to sell him on it (hey, if HGTV does it…):

But he’s still not sold. I did draw him a little sketch of my vision too, but nothing. His response after seeing the video was, “It’s still flooring on the wall.” He has a point, but I think it will look great. It won’t hurt to try it!