Unplanned Plans | And Now, The Basement Renovation!

Wow, it was hard to believe that after two and a half years, our whole-house renovation was done! That meant we had now touched every single surface inside and outside of this home. Or at least every finished surface of the home. We had an unfinished 1400+ square foot basement but had no plans to finish it.

When we bought the Young Victorian, or by her proper name Annabelle’s Place, we were really happy that the basement hadn’t been finished. The whole basement was storage and project space and it was great! We ultimately moved the laundry down to the basement, and it was also our (family) main entry point to the house. It was an easy walk from the driveway and garage down to the basement and having a mudroom there was perfect. It kept all of the “mud” downstairs! We utilized the basement on a daily basis, unlike our previous two homes’ finished basements, which saw much less use.

Why The Change of Heart?

So what led us to change our minds about finishing the basement? I wrote a post not long ago about the really big decision that prompted the basement renovation (read about it here). It was a tough one to write but looking back, it all makes perfect sense now and God’s hand was definitely all over that decision!

It was now just over four years since we purchased the home. What would truly be our final renovation project was about to begin in the late winter/early spring of 2020! What better time than a pandemic to camp out on a major home renovation? It actually worked out well. Having that big project to focus on while the world around us fell apart was a great distraction.

Making It Pretty

We reserved about 400 square feet of unfinished space in the basement to maintain a healthy amount of storage space but the remaining 1000 square feet would be finished into mudroom, exercise, laundry, living, and craft areas.

The basement renovation project took us several months to complete but when it was done, we had a much bigger home overall and a beautiful, highly functional basement space! Just a few areas left outside that we wanted to spruce up and and we were ready for another huge step in our lives!

And Now We’re Done!

Oh my goodness, I can’t believe it but the next post will be the final post on our Young Victorian. It’s bittersweet but can’t wait to share all of the before and after shots with you!

It’s been a ride!
{Shelley}