After nine days of having industrial sized dehumidifiers running, the basement has been declared DRIED! Serve-Pro (emergency water extraction company) came by today to check on the basement, and decided that their work there was finished. Frankly, the house sounds downright dead right now…it’s so quiet without the constant drone of the dehumidifiers running constantly. Now that those are out of there, we can finish up removing the drywall that needs to be taken down. There isn’t much left…most of the stuff we already took down during the flood, but there is some left that we’ve decided to ditch.
We’ve been talking about how we’re going to put it all back together, since it’s our primary place of entertaining. Whenever we have people over, we usually do have dinner and then hang out. Normally, I’m finishing up dinner when people get there, so they go downstairs to have a drink (we have a full bar down there) or play a round of pool while I’m finishing up. Then, after dinner, we always head back downstairs to hang out before people go home. J and I joke that the main floor of the house is where we do our living, but the downstairs is where we have fun!
We were surprised to find that the wall with the drywall damage actually had brick stamped cement behind it. So…it actually looks like a brick wall back there (now it has studs over the “brick” so that they had something to adhere the drywall to, but those aren’t needed for any structural support). We’re talking about leaving that wall exposed now, because we both really like the look of exposed brick! Plus, we’ve decided not to re-do the ceiling. Instead, we’re going to leave it how the rest of the basement ceiling is currently, which is completely open and painted black. So all the studs and support beams, as well as the ductwork and piping, are painted black. It’s very industrial looking, which we both really like. Plus, it leaves a lot of access to any wiring, piping and ductwork that we might need access to again, should something like this happen in the future.
I’ve been looking for painted exposed brick walls, and have found a few options that I really like. We do plan to mount the TV on the wall, and have our gaming systems located down there, so some of the wall will be overtaken by the TV, but I also think that will help break up the painted brick look. I really like the look of whitewashed brick…sort of like this photo:
I think the white walls will look nice against any furniture we put down there, plus the pool table that’s already in the room. In addition, the other walls will still be drywalled and painted, so that will give us some more options for color choices. What do you guys think? Any ideas for exposed brick?
Much love,
K.
A feast is made for laughter 