It's time for your bi-annual basement update!

Things are actually progressing with the basement again. In fact, the rooms are done for now.

So here is the green room a few days ago. Ignore the random head on the wall. That was Craig decorating his man cave for the 2 minutes it existed. I mean, officially this is still his man cave, just with pale green walls, quilts on the bed, a sewing machine and bookshelves filled with homeschooling and parenting books and craft supplies :-)

This doesn't seem that impressive since it's just a boring room.

But then you have to remember the crack-den before. 

It's got new lights, new drywall ceiling, painted walls, new heating ducts and new carpet. 

And here is the white room. 

And yesterday after I finished up the carpet

Now, obviously the lack of junk helps but the egress window, lack of awkward closet, new ceiling and walls and better lighting help as well. You might notice that this room only has baseboard on two of the walls. We plan to put a closet system in that corner (below) and bookshelves from the closet to wall (that's why the electrical outlet is so high). That will happen once Ikea comes to town this fall. The baseboards are painted and waiting to be installed until after that. 

We've already started moving furniture in and sorting books and craft supplies so it really shouldn't be long before I can put up pictures of real furnished room. Fun!

I do want to say something about the carpet since that is the part I just finished this past weekend. We knew we wanted carpet because we needed to cover the asbestos tile. After looking at other options, we went with these carpet tiles from Home Depot. The savings was just too much to ignore (these only cost us about $500 for both rooms) and I liked the idea of replacement tiles for when the kids inevitable stain it. The reviews for these are great but when the boxes came, they were no directions. 

But installation is really simply and after doing two rooms by myself, I feel like a pro. Each tile has an arrow on the underside, you want to make sure all the arrows face the same direction. I accidentally cut one piece the wrong way and its really obvious. But I ended up having the exact number of pieces I need so it just gonna have to stay for now. 

They go down really fast. Each room was done in just an hour or two. And it's easy too. Proof - I did it all myself while also taking care of a child with a tummy bug! Even the cutting isn't bad since they cut very easily with a box cutter. The cut edge seems to show a seam more than the others so try and hide your cuts on the less visible wall or under baseboards. My first room I put the cuts on the most visible wall instead of under the baseboard like I could have if I had realized it and it isn't bad but it could be better. 

The best way to avoid seams is to get the pieces very close together. The backing is self stick and while it doesn't' seem very sticky at first, it does the job. So instead of trying to push a piece into place, gently put it in the right spot, they using just the fibers, pull it snug up against the others, checking the seam for fibers caught underneath before you press it down. I used an paint stick to hold back fibers if they were being annoying but I also learned that when I ruffled the square and pushed it down into place, to leave the edge untouched so that it would be easier to butt the next piece up against it. 

I won't say these are totally seamless but almost. Even without any furniture in the room, they didn't scream carpet squares and once we put furniture in there, even less so. I was worried they wouldn't feel cushy enough down but I think they are just fine. It's not like a cloud but they are just as soft as our upstairs carpet, maybe even a bit more so. The kids certainly didn't have a problem rolling around on them all night - even before I had finished installing them, ahem. So if you have a basement or playroom that needs carpet on a small budget, I highly recommend them. In fact, I'm already wondering if there is a way to use them in the play/tv area of the big room, whenever we have saved up enough energy to get started with that.