It is finished!

The Frederick building inspector signed off on the final basement inspection today, so it's official!  The basement has been mostly finished for 6 months now, but I finally got the baseboards and trim work all finished up a couple weeks ago.  There is still a little bit of touch-up paint to do, but other than that it's done!

Here are some pictures of the finished (and furnished) basement:

First,the fireplace and bookshelves.  This is my favorite feature in the basement.  It turned out better than I could have hoped.

That big wall makes the TV look small.  It's 70" of 4K goodness.




I even decided to work down here instead of in the den.  Here's the built-in desk in the kitchen area.

The recessed lighting in the guest room turned out awesome!  The picture doesn't do it justice...

The shower took even more time than the fireplace or bookshelves.  We use it quite a bit, as you can tell.  We need to clean the floor already.

And here's the rest of the bathroom:

My last big project was building the shelves in the storage room.  The shelves line two of the walls. 

This was supposed to be my exercise room.  Oh, well.

Finished laying tile. Now for grout.

The tile is finally complete.  I finished the ceiling tile and the tile around the doorway on Saturday. now for some grout!

Tiling a shower is a lot of work, apparently

I'm almost done.  Cutting holes out of porcelain tile is tricky.  It's not too bad if you have the right tools (diamond tipped drill bits and saw blades).  But that 4" hole for the light was only 3/4" away from the edge of the tile.  I ended up breaking 3 tiles before I finally got it. 

more progress on the shower

The final large project

I put off the shower until the end.  I got it all waterproofed and started in on the tile.

I also got the sink installed for the wet bar in the family room, and bought a Dr. Pepper fridge.

Granite tile counter tops

Originally I wanted to do granite slab counter tops, but that would have run $2500-$3000.  Since I'm already over budget, I opted for granite tile instead.  The tile was about $300, which was much  more reasonable.  Since I was saving so much money, I splurged and bought some bull nosed edge pieces.  Those were another $300, but I figured I still saved two thousand dollars.  I actually think I prefer the tile over the slab.  It might not be ideal for a kitchen, but it's great for the basement.

I'm going to add a strip of wood to match the cabinets across the top of the backsplash.

Cabinets and railing

I installed the rest of my cabinets a couple weeks ago.  Now I just need to do the counter tops.

I also installed and stained the handrail, newel post, and balusters going down the stairs.  As always that took way longer than it should have.