basement re-do

Back in May, our finished basement flooded. It was pouring rain and the sump pump was working overtime. If you're familiar with sump pumps, there's a rubber ball type thingy down in the well called a "float". Well, it was this float that got stuck to the wall of the sump pump, so the pump stopped working. I was at work when my son called to tell me the basement was flooding. By the time I got home, the water was creeping out of the smaller, unfinished part of the basement that's the storage space and laundry room, and into the carpeted part that was our family room.

 Mr. Comfy House, our son, and a couple of his friends worked for hours, clearing all the furniture, books, and decor out of the basement and into the garage and spare bedroom. We then called a restoration company who came and tore up the carpeting and tore down the wainscoting from the walls. Then they set up fans and huge dehumidifiers to dry out the basement.

 In the picture below, you can see the brown wainscoting on the back wall. They didn't have to tear a couple of pieces down because the water didn't affect that wall.

We were finally able to hire a contractor and get started on remodeling this month. Since the basement is naturally dark (it's not a walk-out basement and the only natural light is from one underground window well), we wanted to lighten and brighten the basement with color. We decided to have new wainscoting put up, but had the contractor paint it white.

As for wall color, I decided to go with something different. I have always chosen "safe" colors - light blue, beige, green. I broke out of my (boring) box and chose a pumpkin spice color. It was really hard to get the shade exactly right. We had to go back to Home Depot three times! You can see the trial patches of color in the picture below.



First coat of pumpkin spice...





In my next post, I'll show you pictures of the stairway and the floor. Thanks for your visit!