The basement.

Prepare yourself.  This might be the worst before picture (well, pictures) I've ever posted, and I must be crazy for posting this before I have an after to dazzle you with!  But this is reality.  Right?  I don't have enough time or money to make over every space in my home right now, so some things are reeeeaaally slow works in progress, like our basement.

Our basement seems like such wasted space.  It's 1600 sq ft (though only part of that can be used to live in as probably 400 or 500 sq ft is our "utility closet," so-to-speak.  I finally decided that rather than wait to save up the money to professionally finish it (which will never happen), we'd just do the best we could to "faux" finish it.

Here's what our basement will look like again once we get all the clutter cleared out.  This is what it looked like upon moving in, before tossing (literally) everything down the stairs that we didn't know what to do with right this very moment.

That's part of it.  There's a large walled-off area to the right that houses our air conditioner/heater/water heater and a whole workshop area that Tim is going to love once we get this thing clean enough that he can use it.  This will also be where we store everything once we're "living" down here.

Now, brace yourself.  Here are the befores and the currents:

BEFORE:

 CURRENT:

BEFORE:

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BEFORE:

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BEFORE:

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BEFORE:

CURRENT:

And this is the room where we have slowly started moving everything that needs storing:

Part of the reason it is so crazy in our basement (and also the biggest reason we will probably  never professionally finish this basement) is because two summers ago, this basement took in quite a bit of water.  We had to pull the carpet back and tear apart our nicely organized basement (honestly, it was!) as quickly as possible to move everything over to the right side of the basement, the part that stays dry.  This is despite having a waterproofing system down here and sump pump.  Now, granted, it only happened because we got so much rain in such a short period of time, but I don't want to pay so much for drywall only to have it ruined the next time we get a massive amount of rain and have to pay to put up all new drywall again.

So, long story short, our basement, without spending a lot of money on additional waterproofing, will probably never be fit to be professionally finished, but we're okay with that.  Luckily, though, because of the waterproofing and sump pump, I don't think we'll ever have standing water down here, so I think we're safe to set up a playroom and little living area and a craft area/office down here.  If we ever do get water down here again, I don't think it would be enough to ruin anything.

Our tentative plans:

Replace all the windows.  They're old and original and gross and some are so caked with stuck-on dirt that you can't see out of them.  I'd love to add a few recessed windows, but I hear the price tag is pretty steep and I don't think that's a project we're ready to tackle on our own yet.

Spray the ceiling black.  A cheaper alternative to drop-ceilings that also keeps us from having to give up so much of the height in the basement.

It'll look like this:

Source: Cool Home Creations

We'll repaint the cement walls white again...hopefully in the right way this time, as so much of the paint down here has already bubbled up and peeled off.  I've been reading a lot about how to properly paint basement walls.  I'm pretty sure this one wasn't done properly.

Someday, hopefully, we'll get new carpet, but for now, we'll just stick with the office-grade carpet that's already down here.  Might as well, right?

I'll separate my craft room/office from the playroom & living room with some pallet dividers that Tim is going to build me.  I think they're pretty dang fun & industrial and as close to free as you can get!

Source: My Friend Staci

We may add some drywall to close off the area that goes up the stairs just as a safety measure.  They're definitely not nice stairs, I'd definitely rather be able to block off the kids' access to the utility room and this seems like the best way to do it, but that's still up in the air depending on cost.

The rest will probably just be accessorizing and trying to make this as homey as possible without professionally refinishing it.