The Extreme Home Makeover, Pt. 2

A couple weeks ago I shared photos of the renovations we did on the main floor of our house.  Over the past couple years, we've also put a ton of time and money into finishing our basement.  Here are some before and after photos of the basement...

Family Room Before

Family Room After

This was the first room to be completed.  Marco claimed it as his "Man Cave".  It was over a year before any other rooms in the house were completed.  The CDs and DVDs have now been replaced with toys.  The desk has been moved to the office and there are now toy bins, a music table and riding toys in that corner.  The "Man Cave" is now referred to as the "Toy Room".

Master Bedroom Before

(Photo taken from the hall.  The master bedroom is the area past the beams where all the boxes of junk are.)

Master Bedroom After

If it isn't obvious from the pictures, our room is tiny.  The king-sized bed and side tables basically take up the entire room.  Good thing our dressers fit in the closet!

I just realized I took this picture before we hung our paper lanterns.  We have these paper lanterns hanging over our side tables...

Basement Room #2 Before

(It was Gigi's room, but now it's the office)

(Isn't my hubby good lookin'?  And don't you love the scary wiring mess we had to deal with?!)

After

(as Gigi's room)

This room is seriously so small, I had to stand in the hall to take the pictures!

After

(as the office)

The office definitely still needs some help in the organization department!  Hopefully I'll have time to tackle that project soon!

Bathroom & Storage Rooms Before

Bathroom & Storage Rooms After

We were actually able to squeeze a deep freezer into this tiny storage area, if you can believe it.  Marco's uncle, Duane, was the genius one to think of turning this back area into a small storage area.  It's great because it goes all the way under the stairs!  The area where the furnace and water heater are is where we store our tools.

Laundry Room Before

Notice the mess of electrical wires and duct work we had to deal with!  We replaced all of it.

Laundry Room After

So those are all the basement renovations.  Like I said, we also replaced all the electrical and all the ducts.  We also replaced all the plumbing and installed central air.



We had every kind of plumbing you could think of in our house when we moved in... copper to galvanized to Pex.  But Marco's dad came out for a day and they replaced it all with Pex.

About a year ago, we also built a carport...

I haven't had covered parking since I lived in Provo (8 years ago).  I had forgotten how nice it is not to get into a baking hot car in the summer, or to have to scrape my windshield in the winter!

And right after Emi Lou was born, we decided to replace our deck.  I don't have a good before picture, but here's a picture from Gigi's birthday last October...

Gross, isn't it?

Here's our beautiful deck now...

We changed the shape a little, so the deck is bigger now, and the space is more usable.

So after all these renovations... finishing the basement, remodeling the main floor, replacing all the plumbing, electric, and HVAC, adding A/C, a fence, and a carport... guess how much our house is worth?

FOURTEEN THOUSAND LESS THAN WE BOUGHT IT FOR!  Can you believe it?!  We thought with all the sweat and cold hard cash we put into it, we'd at least be able to break even.  We can't sell it or even refinance now though, because we owe $2000 more than it appraised for! (Apparently we have some stupid kind of PMI that makes us ineligible for even the HARP program.) 

So we're basically stuck for a while.  Eventually, we're hoping we'll be able to rent it out for enough to cover our mortgage payment, and then just buy another house.  I'm not really sure how I feel about being a landlord, but I hear it's nice to have rental properties when you retire.  Why, oh why did we have to buy our starter house at the peak of the market?!!