The Basement: Pendant Lighting

Once we had figured out the cabinetry layout, it became obvious to me that we had to rejig our lighting plan. I'd been planning to put our awesome harvest table that we found last summer...

...in front of the banquette. With the perspective drawing from The Home Depot, I could now see that the steel beam would be right over the table so a centre pendant wouldn't work. Instead, I would now have to have two pendants, one on either side of the beam. Double the fun!

I love looking for lighting. I think there are so many beautiful designs out there that can really add a nice sculptural, architectural detail to a room. Here's a few that have caught my eye.

1. Graphic, black, modern. I like how this pendant looks against the more traditional elements of the room like beadboard and shaker cabinets. The black colour would really capture your eye against all the white in the room and would be a great focal point as you enter the basement. Janice installed similar looking lights in her all-white hallway and I think they look great.
2. This globe light reminds me of the 1970's. Simple yet groovy, a pair of these would look like glowing orbs floating over the table. If I wanted the lights to fade a bit more into the surroundings, these might be a good choice.
3. How about something more ornate? In brass, nonetheless! We've got a bit of a nautical vibe going on in the basement and the brass reminds me of shiny portholes and fancy handrails you'd find on a luxury ship.
4. Keeping with nautical feel but maybe a bit more literal, is this striking pendant. I like the tiered design and the nice heavy weight of the pole.
5. Of course I had to include the classic schoolhouse light on the list. Chloe and I will be doing a lot  of crafting in this area so this just feels right.
6. Then there's this pendant which is a mix of modern and traditional. The big glass shade should provide lots of light. The thick hardware keeps it from looking too skimpy. Maybe we'd get the best of both worlds with a transitional light like this?

What do you think? Anything stand out as a favourite? Have you come across any other lights I should add to the list?

The Basement: Kitchen Cabinetry Layout

Planning a cabinetry layout for a kitchen, laundry room or other storage area can be a tricky thing. You need to consider so many variables: function, form, style, accessibility, usage. The process can be overwhelming. Since I've been thinking about this basement renovation, I dunno, for the last three years, I already mostly knew how I wanted my cabinets to look. But going through the planning with the help of a kitchen designer at The Home Depot helped open my eyes to some planning options I never considered.

After we walked through the store and picked out the cabinet colours and countertop finishes, we sat down to select the cabinet sizes and plan the layout. Here's the plan I've had in my head for all these years:

The cabinetry would go in the L-shaped area at the bottom of this image. Storage, storage, and more storage! The layout had to meet a few requirements:
- enough storage for craft & sewing supplies
- a small portion of the desk dedicated to a home office area
- a long banquette. I thought this would be great for Chloe to sit on when we're crafting at the harvest table. It would be a fun place too just to lie around and read a book.

Let's start with the home office area. Here's why I picked what I did, and some kitchen planning tips I learned up along the way:

1. Since we'll be sitting at a desk height chair, we needed to have the office zone at a lower height than the rest of the cabinetry, which is standard cabinet height (34"). We dropped down the countertop and "anchored" it with a pedestal that can be used to store hanging files.
2. To the right of the office zone, there are two stacks of narrow drawers. These drawers are a perfect height for storing smaller craft supplies - pots of glitter, paintbrushes, glue gun, paper etc - and don't waste any space. Leave it to Martha Stewart to offer these cabinets suited to crafts :) I have two similar sized cabinets in the kitchen and use them for storing placemats and napkins, and for storing foil, wax paper, and ziploc bags. They are a great size for thinner objects and small canisters.
3. I knew I wanted two tall towers at the ends of the L. This would help define the area as well as maximize storage.
4. I love the deep pot drawers I have in the upstairs kitchen so I knew I wanted mostly pot drawers here in the basement as well. They are so much easier for pulling things in and out of.
5. Atop the pot drawers, we stacked cabinets to the ceiling. I also incorporated one of my "must have" features: glass-front doors. When you have this much cabinetry, I think its important to keep things from looking too heavy. You can do that by mixing closed and open storage, or using glass or mesh front doors. In the craft area, glass-front doors have the bonus of revealing all the pretty things I'll have stored behind the doors like colourful bolts of fabric or pretty wrapping paper.

Looking good so far. Onto the craft zone cabinetry:

1. This was a long wall, so we knew we needed some variation in height to make it look more interesting and not so long and boring. Again, one end is defined by a tall cabinet. As I mentioned before, we have a wide bulkhead over this end. Since we started planning the cabinetry before the bulkhead was fully framed in, we built the bulkhead to be exactly the same width as the cabinet below. This way, there would be no weird ceiling jogs. A small detail, but one which will overall make this part of the room look cleaner and more intentional.
2. I knew I didn't want the tall cabinets to drop down immediately to banquette height. I thought that would feel funny, like you're sitting beside a wall. So, we incorporated some smaller bookcases on either end of the banquette. A perfect place for Chloe to store some of her books, and its also easily accessible if she's lying on the bench reading.
3. I thought we would have to DIY the banquette: use cabinet uppers, strap them together, and build a plywood top to hide the seams and give a place to put the bench cushion on to. Yet again, the ever smart Martha has already thought of that and offers bench cabinets (the drawers pull out, instead of having doors which open to the sides like cabinet uppers would have) as well as a matching board which can placed over the bench drawers to create a stable, strong bench.

You always want to allow for some variance in your cabinetry plan since ceilings and floors may not be exactly level. We have a bit of "play" with the 4 1/2" toekick that runs along the bottom of all the cabinetry, and in the filler panels near the corner where the countertops meet. Additionally, you want to wait until at least after framing is done to take measurements, then include additional room for the drywall and flooring still to come, and then plan and order your cabinets.

So that was the plan. Ready to see what this will all look like?

I think I will be in storage heaven. That's the plan anyway :)

Amber, the kitchen designer at The Home Depot was a great help and actually made this process fun and quick. It was helpful that she knew the cabinet sizes offered - it was easier for her to mix and match and offer options, than if I had to go through the catalogue and use an online tool and plan it all from scratch myself.

So if you're planning your own renovation and are considering meeting with a kitchen designer, here's some tips from The Home Depot on how to get the most out of your design:

• When working on layout take into account how you are going to use the space, where you would want items stored.
• Make a list of things you like about your current kitchen and things that you don't
• Mark any images (concepts you like, this helps get an idea of overall picture, ie dark cabinets, light cabinets, granite etc)
• Measure walls and opening locations (always measure from the outside of the casing around doors and windows, you don't want to have to cut into them), and measure out plumbing and electrical locations
• Make a list of everything that needs a place in your kitchen (or space you are designing) and ensure that you have accounted for all these items (Amber likes to label the elevations with what's being stored in each spot. Good to know that your cumbersome KitchenAid mixer has a home!)
• And a few helpful cost-cutting tips:
• Always upgrade on the construction (ie wood drawers and metal drawer guides vs nylon) and maybe go for a less detailed door or something with a standard finish (vs paying for a premium finish) 
• If finishing ends is extra, only finish ends that are exposed
• Upgrade to a bank of drawers where you want drawers and down grade to a full height door everywhere else (rather than having a drawer at the top of every cabinet). This saves cost overall.
• Some cabinet companies offer the option to profile the drawer or have a slab front (slab fronts cost less)

This project was sponsored by The Home Depot. All the opinions expressed are my own.

The Basement: Kitchen Cabinetry Selection

Its been three days and I'm still going through all the recaps about BlogPodium. Its been so awesome to see what people took away from the event. Thanks again to everyone who helped out, attended, or supported this little big idea Lindsay and I had.

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Now back to our regularly scheduled programming :)

It's almost crunch time, folks. Our awesome contractor Basement Spaces has been working these last few weeks to take us to what the design trade calls "base building" - from demolition, through installing studs, electrical and plumbing, to primed drywall - and we're almost there! That is a little scary to me because everything beyond this point... painting, installing cabinetry in the craft area and laundry room, installing flooring, all tilework, installing all bathroom fixtures, building the cutest littlest playhouse ever, and all trimwork... is up to us!

Getting close!

We've done the pre-work already, planning the layout and basically deciding where everything will go. And great news, we're working with a fabulous sponsor, The Home Depot, to help bring these plans to life. Home Depot has always been our go-to place for renovation supplies. We used them when we were building the deck bench seat, for Chloe's play kitchen, the Bloggers Give Back garden, and many more house projects so you can imagine how excited we are to work with them on the basement renovation.

First up, figuring out the cabinetry for the craft area. Of all the items going into the basement, cabinetry has the longest lead time (about 4-6 weeks) so it was one of the things we needed to decide first. Since we would be using kitchen cabinetry for the craft area, the banquette seat, and general storage, it made sense to meet with a kitchen designer. Meet Amber, Kitchen Designer at The Home Depot Yorkdale location.

I've met with a kitchen designer before, in fact, three of them, when we were researching options for our main kitchen. While you can plan a kitchen yourself, a professional kitchen designer knows all the tips and tricks to make your kitchen uber-functional AND stylish. They know things that we laypeople may not, like the minimum distance between an island and other cabinetry, and how to mix closed and open storage attractively, but most importantly they save you time planning and help prevent costly mistakes. Maybe she would have caught that our stove wasn't going to fit down our hallway.

We started with the easy part, selecting a door style. I say easy because I've had a major crush on Martha Stewart cabinetry which I blogged about here and here. I knew I wanted to keep the look similar to the rest of the house so I selected the Ox Hill line.


For the colour, I was immediately drawn to Sharkey Grey. Its just so "Martha", isn't it? Then it was on to finding a countertop. Since the countertop would be subjected to everything from crafts paints to hot glue, exacto knives and paper punches, it had to be durable and resistant to staining. Corian fit the bill. Here are a few colours that caught my eye. Can you guess which one made the cut?

Amber also helped me pick the basement flooring but I'll save the How's and Why's of that for another post. It is good idea to pick all your main finishes together though so that you establish the colour palette and set a direction for the rest of your decor decisions.

A few other decisions we tackled: cabinetry hardware...

How gorgeous are those brass handles? And they're affordable too!

and countertop profile. Amber suggested we go with this reversed bevel profile. Why? It makes it easy to wipe spilled glitter or crafty embellishments off the countertop into your hand. Smart thinking!

Now that we had the "look" identified, it was time to move on to figuring out the actual cabinet configuration. More on that coming up next!

Have you ever worked with a kitchen designer? Any kitchen design tips you want to pass on?

The Basement: Where We're At

Here's an update on how things are looking in the basement...

Renovations always take longer than planned, don't they? We've had a few delays due to illness, waiting for parts, and generally sequencing this before that and getting this trade in so the next trade can do their work. Plumbing will be back in soon to finish up and then drywall can go up! (Side note: Is saying "drywall" a Canadian thing? I notice Americans say "sheetrock").

Drywall dust. Can't wait!! :)

The Basement: Playhouse - en francais!

While plumbing and electrical is still going on in the basement, I have some time to play around with decorating ideas. The one area that really excites me is the playhouse under the stairs. Since you all convinced me to have fun with this little nook, I've been thinking up different schemes, some country, some rustic. There's so many different looks I could create... barn, library, schoolhouse. 

I decided instead to take some inspiration from our favourite city in the world, Paris.

Scenes from our honeymoon in Paris

A French cafe! Doesn't that sound fun? Here's what I'm thinking:



I'd love to make an awning over the opening, one that doesn't protrude too far into the hallway. It'll add some colour into the mostly white basement too. Overhead, a mini-schoolhouse light sconce with a bronze base would add a bistro touch. The little faux boxwood would be cute. Maybe its a decal or maybe I can get my artsy brother to do a tromp l'oeil? On the doors, nothing says French cafe more than chalkboards. I'd like to keep things fun inside too and could use some wallpaper scraps to lighten things up.

So that's another plan. Even photoshopped Chloe seems to like it ;)

What would you do with the playhouse-under-the-stairs?

The Basement: Framing Frenzy

We had a great old time at Chloe's birthday party but I wished we had the basement finished (at least drywall up and subfloor down) in time to do some party games down there. But we're still about two weeks away from that point and things are looking a bit more like this...

The framing is up! I LOVE this part of renovating when you really start to see the rooms take shape. You also start to get a feel of the space and walking through it, see the sightlines, the sizes of the rooms, how the rooms work together.

You also get a few surprises, like the one above. That's a bulkhead along the wall. A big one.

 

The striped areas show the two bulkheads we'll have in the basement. In the big bulkhead, we had two plumbing pipes that ran the length of the long wall, about 1.5 feet in from the wall. We could have spent the money and brought them closer to the wall, but there would still be a bulkhead so we decided to just create a larger bulkhead instead. Now that I see it in person though, its deeper than I thought and we're definitely going have to add in some potlights in the bulkhead so that area of the room doesn't feel low and dark.

The smaller bulkhead also presented a bit of a problem. See where it runs along the left side of the laundry room? You know, right where we have upper cabinets planned? Yeah. THERE. So we've had to come up with a creative solution. We'll see if it works out.

There's lots of good surprises too though. Like the nice deep window frames. The old windows weren't nearly as deep, but with the 3"+ of spray foam insulation and the new framing, they've become much more significant and a nice architectural feature. 

Its fun to see how the pros do their work and learn a few of their tricks. See that piece of metal strapped across the two floor joists? Our framer used it to secure the metal stud for the laundry room wall. Otherwise, the stud would be floating in space.

Now's the time too to make small changes which can improve things both functionally and aesthetically. Like framing for a 32" laundry room door instead of the 28" door we had in our drawings. Why? Because our laundry machines are 30" wide! Oops.

We're also adding blocking in specific locations around the basement. Blocking means adding in pieces of wood or plywood between the studs so that when you hang things like heavy art, mirrors or flatscreen TV's, you'll have extra support. Its a good idea to plan out your artwork at this stage for exactly that reason.

Another small detail caught by HandyMan and his architect's eye: lining up the bulkhead with the cabinetry. We have our cabinetry picked out and it turned out to be slightly larger than the bulkhead so we've asked the framer to bring out the drywall on the bulkhead slightly so everything looks nice and neat and intentional.

With the bulk of the contractor's work done, we've asked ourselves could we have done this on our own? The answer is a definite no. While we know how to frame a wall and how to do some basic plumbing and I'm sure we could Google and YouTube what we don't know how to do, I've been impressed how there have been valuable suggestions and sharing of knowledge along the way by our contractor Basement Spaces and his trades which ultimately will result in a better design.

Electrical comes back tomorrow to put in all the new lighting (wahoo!) and then plumbing and then the drywall goes up. Things are moving fast!!

The Basement: Laundry Room Layout

And just as I thought we were moving quickly in the basement, things have slowed down. A few unexpected delays mean our framing will start sometime this week. That means I've got time on my hands to plan and scheme. So using the Ikea kitchen planner, here's what the laundry room is looking like:

View from the hallway entering into the laundry room

A bird's eye view

Looks like I have the room pretty well planned out, doesn't it? Well... that's because we've had these Ikea cabinets sitting in our storage locker for the last year and a half. Ugh. If you remember, we tried to get this basement reno off the ground over a year ago, then had a falling out with the contractor we were just about to hire so decided to switch gears and renovate the living room instead. So these cabinets have sat. In a storage locker. Costing us $$. I'll be so glad to get rid of that locker and move everything back into the basement.

We completely forgot what cabinets we had bought and lost our shopping list so we pulled them out last weekend and did an inventory. I think this is what we had planned. This is the view from the storage room. I would have loved to have tall pull-out pantry towers on the left wall but the ceilings are only 7' tall so we'll have to go with stacked cabinets. Maybe we'll put little cubbies in between so we don't waste the space above, or we could put a narrow open shelf there. The pot drawers on the bottom will be used for storing linens and household items. The inspiration pics I posted last week have got me thinking about beadboard and planking. Maybe on the backsplash, or on the ceiling.

On the opposite side, we have room for the washer and dryer and sink cabinet. We have upper cabinets going wall to wall. I wish they lined up with the machines and cabinet below but they don't. We'll definitely be doing a countertop over the washing machines. Not sure if we'll go with wood countertops but I really like the look. It may not be the best material though for a wet area.

Seeing as I've been thinking about this room for so long, there's a few other ideas I've got in mind. There'll be some frosted glass and mirror (maybe), a chrome rod and other decorative elements. That's the plan anyway. We'll have to wait and see if it becomes reality.

The Basement: Laundry Ideas

We should have some walls up in the basement by the end of this week. I'm excited to see the whole basement come together, but I'm especially looking forward to the laundry room. Its going to be a narrow room with no natural light so we'll have to do our best to keep it from feeling like a tiny cave.

Laundry rooms are often the most neglected rooms in the house. When we were house hunting, I can't tell you how many laundry rooms we saw that we were basically machines plunked in unfinished basements, sitting on concrete floors with creepy lighting and no storage or countertops. I don't know why that is. Like, what about that says "clean clothes"? I'd much rather wash my skivvies in a room that has elements like these...

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This room packs it all in - counterspace, a mix of open and closed storage, good symmetry, nice textures, ample natural light and overhead pot lights. I like how they've painted the cabinet fronts a colour similar to the washing machines too.

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This one has a lot of features that were already in my plan - Ikea cabinets, and a rod to hang wet clothes. Counters over the washing machines are also a must.

Is it just me or are you seeing horizontal planking everywhere? I love the look, a little bit beachy, a little bit traditional. Sort of like my basement :) The tongue and groove ceiling is fabulous too. I wonder how that would look in a room that only has 7" ceilings?

Using a graphic wallpaper like this helps to break up all the cabinetry. Since our laundry room will also house our pantry and linens, we'll need a lot of closed storage. Pattern like this can help the room feel less heavy.

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HandyMan says he wants a TV in the laundry room. If it gets him to do the laundry, then I'm all for it ;)

What does your laundry room look like? Scary or sublime?

The Basement: Spray Foam Fun

It looks like Barney threw up on my basement walls doesn't it? We've had the three exterior walls covered with spray foam insulation. We debated going with batt insulation, but in the end, we felt the additional investment in spray foam would be worth it. Because spray foam can adhere to almost anything and expands to fill any crevice or irregular shape, it can provide a 100% air tight seal resulting in reduced HVAC costs.

As well, the 3" of foam applied acts both as an air barrier and a vapour barrier so there is no opportunity for wall condensation that can result in mould or mildew. Oh, and it is also more resistant to rodents and other creepy crawlies.  Did I tell you that we found a mouse in the basement last fall? YUCK - so rodent resistance is very high on my list :)

This is going to be one toasty warm basement. Since we had the walls open (see, there's that scope creep popping up again), we had AirForce Insulation also spray the first three feet under the kitchen exterior door. When we renovated the kitchen three years ago, we thought of adding in-floor heating under the floor tile but it was late in the game - we would have to bring the electrician back in and delay the drywall. So we decided not to do it, but since our galley kitchen opens to a pair of sliding doors at one end, we've been living with a cold tile floor every winter since. Now with the spray foam underneath, we could make it at least a little bit warmer.

It was a quick job and the spray guys were done in a few hours. We stayed out of the house most of the day to let the fumes air out but the basement was odorless and the foam was nice and tight by the time we got home after dinner. Now that this is done, our contractor can start the job of putting the basement back together.

Framing will start this week. We'll have walls very very soon! Yippee!

The Basement: Scope Creep

Okay, fine, you convinced me. A playhouse will go under the stairs. Hopefully. Maybe. Depending on the additional cost. We hadn't budgeted for drywalling under the stairs (it was going to be rough storage) so now its a matter of how much it will cost to get this little slice of toddler heaven built. We're hoping we can offset this cost with things that were in our basement quote but won't be done (some were deemed unnecessary, some aren't possible). HandyMan and I really could do it ourselves, but since our contractor Basement Spaces will be doing the framing and drywall, it only makes sense to add this small project to the job.

And that my friends is scope creep. I think its inevitable to have a bit of scope creep no matter what renovation you're doing. "While we have the walls open we might as well..." is a common phrase around our house. Electrician coming on site? Well, we might as well have him do this and this and this while he's here.

But I'm not going to worry about the scope creep for now. For now, I'm all about the pretty. See? I'm already thinking up design schemes...

I'd like something cute, but HandyMan also wants something that will fit in with the rest of the basement decor. I would have loved to have a dutch door, but the doorway is too wide and it swings into a hallway so we'll have to go with swing doors. So many different directions I can go with this design! It'll be fun to surprise Chloe with this little room that is all her own. More ideas to come...

The Basement: Under The Stairs

So things are moving along in the basement, slowly. Lots of cleanup has been going on... old electrical, alarm wires, plumbing - all cleaned up, made more efficient, moved out of the way. We also moved the hot water tank into the storage are and and took the opportunity to switch it from electric to more efficient gas. Surprisingly, since we were renting the tank from Direct Energy, making the switch (moving the tank, getting the new unit, drilling for the external vent) was free!

What wasn't free... turning the furnace 45 degrees. See that blue tape line? A new wall to the storage room will sit just outside that line. There wouldn't be enough room to access the furnace if needed so it had to be turned. The storage/laundry room is starting to take shape. The laundry machines are in their new spot and that garbage can & plywood contraption represents the countertop and cabinetry on the opposite side. The laundry room feels bigger than I thought! We'll see if it still feels that way once the walls are up.



This is one area on my mind though. If you remember, we had a bank of cabinetry underneath the stairs. Great for storage, but we decided to take them out so we could access the area for insulation and match the look with the rest of the cabinetry going in the basement. A few ideas I'm playing with:

Full-height cabinets. This is similar to what we had before, except the doors would match the other cabinets in the craft zone (shown on the left of the mockup) and we would eliminate the separate access to the triangular area. Having a setup like this would be great for storage. One tall area could be used to store the vacuum and brooms. The other side would be good for storing our big Tupperware containers of off-season clothing.

Another idea: Create more of a built-in look with deep pot drawers below and drywall above. I find pot drawers so useful. I could totally see using these drawers for those random seasonal decor items I have stored in multiple places around the house. One downside to this option is we lose the extra storage space in the triangle area.

We could also do open shelving and have some room for display. This might be a nice way to break up all the cabinetry. We could possibly keep costs down by using off-the-shelf bookcases that we would make look built-in. However, since most bookcases aren't that deep, we'd lose all that storage space behind the bookcases.

And this is a really fun option... putting a playhouse for Chloe under the stairs. I'd love to create something like this one by Mossy. Growing up, we had a playhouse under the stairs (okay, it was more like a curtain and a table) and I remember spending hours there, reading books, playing grocery with my sister, hiding my treasures. How fun would this be?

Any other options you can think of? How have you used the space under your stairs?