I’ve finally got the main floor of our house to a state that I’m mostly happy with. I have some long-term projects planned for the kitchen and bathroom, but nothing pressing. Now I’ve moved on to decorating the basement. We are lucky because we have a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom, finished basement. Unfortunately, the finishing was done pretty shoddily. The bathroom is straight out of the seventies, the baseboards are crooked, some of doors don’t even have proper frames, and the carpet is low quality. Also, the layout is super weird. One bedroom is tiny and I don’t think it’s officially considered a bedroom. The other bedroom is very large, but is an elongated shape that is an inefficient use of space. We are planning on eventually retrofitting the house (welcome to earthquake country), and at that point we will likely fix the larger issues. With that in mind, I didn’t want to put a ton of investment in the basement beforehand. So instead, I’ve focused on decorating it nicely to hide the flaws. Case in point, these hanging bookshelves in the larger of the two bedrooms.
I spent a lot of time arranging my books and knickknacks to make it both visually appealing and practical. For instance, I used a message board for the wifi password so our guests have it handy. I’ve used some inexpensive Ikea Ranarp Clamp Spotlights as extra lighting. They are a bit quirky, but I like them. Joey installed cord hiders to keep the cords tidily managed.
I also arranged our books into a color gradient. It’s kind of silly, but I think it’s a fun touch.
The left side has all the books with colors and the right side is all the black and white books.
To be totally honest, the other half of this room is sad, which is why I haven’t included any photos. It houses some crafting supplies, an Ikea desk and a dinky little chair. It’s definitely in need of some love. I’ll post pictures of it when I have it in a state that isn’t so embarrassing. Having a baby has really slowed down my decorating progress. I can only do things when she is napping and unfortunately, Florence isn’t a big fan of naps. Oh well, I love her so much that I don’t mind!