HGTV: Draper Edition

Well, we finally did it. After months of debate, planning, and procrastinating, we finally finished our basement. It started with a desire a long time ago to have a more inviting place to play ping pong than the dirty, dusty, cold basement. It ended up being more work than we could have imagined and a great hang out place that we love. Here is a little before and after video we made. The casual reader or one with limited time at the moment can feel free to turn away after this video, and for those more interested, more details and pictures lie below (meaning it's a long post)........

We had some HUGE help from a few people and can't post without giving a shoutout and thank you to them for all their hard work and help. Russell Nelson & Katie Jorgensen-Nelson came up several nights and ended up staying until 3 or 4 in the morning to help. Russ gave much expertise and construction worker language to the project. Brandon and Meredith Winter also helped a TON with everything. And we must also give a shout out to our neighbor Mikkel. They're not quite in the blogging world yet, so I don't know if he'll read this, but he helped a lot, especially with the surround sound and what not. Thank you guys for all the help. We couldn't have done it without you. We will not be thanking Ivan, our drywaller. He took 2 weeks longer than expected and didn't speak any English, so we never had any clue what he was doing. Ugh.....Ivan.

So here's how it went down........ Last Thanksgiving, Russ and his framing buddy came up and we framed the walls. We had decided we wanted some sort of built in entertainment center type thing, so after much planning we attempted it. The project sat at that stage until February. Here we are trying to follow the plan I'd drawn up the night before.

The Bjorkmans were coming to visit us in March, so we decided we should really step it up and try to finish before they got here. After 3-4 failed electricians, several bids, and a lot of hesitation, we finally got the real work started. We had an electrician come and then his cousin, Ivan the drywaller. Ugh......Ivan. When Ivan finally finished with the drywall, it was our turn to get busy. He finished 4 days before Adrienne and Steve were to arrive. That gave us 4 days to paint, have carpet installed, finish the entertainment center, put up beadboard, hang doors, install baseboards and door trim, find and hang drapes, put up crown molding, and wire all our electronic devices. It was a very busy 4 days, and we didn't finish the crown molding until after they'd left, but much thanks to the Nelsons and Winters we were able to get all the rest done. Below are the before and after pictures.........

Entertainment Center
This turned out better than we could have expected. Lesley's idea for beadboard (the white stuff) was genious. It really made it look a lot better than it would have otherwise. We mounted the tv on a swivel in there so it can be seen from anywhere in the room, threw some wall sconces in for that movie slight movie theater feel, and with Mikkel's help, even managed to get some legitimate surround sound going. I'm pretty sure I still can't tell the difference, but he tells me it sounds good, so I take his word for it.

Room in various stages

Fished Product
We absolutely love the big sectional we found. It seats a ton of people and it very comfortable. To give you and idea how much she likes it, Lesley gets annoyed because I won't let her sleep on it overnight. But this couch was almost not to be. When the delivery guys showed up, the couch was too wide to fit in the door. They told us they'd take it back and we could get a different one. We said no. So later that day I took a saw to the door jam and cut out the door stop. The width of the couch was actually about 1/16th wider than the door opening after cutting it. But after much pushing and prayer, it somehow slipped in. Now I just have to fix that door.....

We decided to go with a somewhat of a sports theme down there. At Ikea Lesley found this tall, bar style table. She then bought a piece of glass to go over the top of it and then we put a bunch of old school basketball cards in there. We're talking Kurt Rambis, short shorts John Stockton, and of course, all the old school Blazers (Clyde, Mercy Kersey, Buck, Duckworth, Terry Porter, Ala Abdulnabi, etc). We find ourselves just sitting at the table looking at all the cards. She really outdid herself. Also, keeping with the sports theme, we have a wall of sports photos, with multi-light fixture to highlight each of them. The couch is probably Lesley's favorite part of the room, but this is mine. All the photos on the wall were taken by us, with the exception of the middle one that was taken of me, Ross, and Rodney at the BYU vs. Utah game in 2005. Feel free to let us know which photo you like best. We find it very interesting to hear the different opinions. You can click on the pictures below to get a larger, better look.

A Few Highlighted Pieces

I just liked this shot of the cards so I threw it in there. But Lesley wanted a highlight on the drapes that we got. They do a good job of tying in the colors of the room. This picture on the right is our closet (mini-fridge and DVD's inside) and the stow-away for the ping pong table. When we want to play ping-pong, we roll the table out, and slide the cards table into this little hallway so we have room. Let's just say I've had a good run on the new table thus far, embarrassing both Evan and Brandon (sorry guys, you know it's true).

Crew at Work

Well that's pretty much it. What started as an attempt to facilitate ping pong turned into a full fledged family room, and we love it. We're grateful for those who helped make it happen. It pretty much took over our lives for about a month, but it was well worth it. Lesley's artistic eye and skills learned from "Divine Design with Candice Olsen" on HGTV really came in handy. There is still a little bit of decorating work to be done (a BYU stadium panoramic is in the works), but that will come with time. For now we're happy to be done, and happy to finally have it blogged about. It wasn't officially done until it had been blogged. So anyway, next time you're in Draper, feel free to stop by and visit. You never know, Lesley might even let you beat her in ping-pong.............