Since the attic and main floor completed areas have been posted, I can now move onto the basement. The best addition is the new bathroom that moonlights as a laundry room.

View the full basement bath photo set on my Flickr. You can also see all the entries categorized as Before and Afters.

Before we moved in, the area now occupied by the bathroom looked like this:

Once the basement was cleared out, we needed to replace the sewer line and all the plumbing.

The only working shower we had for several months was this beauty right here:

Fast forward to the Afters:

When we moved in, all we had was a laundry sink and washer. No dryer or hook-up. It was over a year of going to the laundromat. I love doing laundry again now that I can do it at home!

Meyda Tiffany lighting:

A salvaged and refinished door from Rejuvenation:

9 Responses to “Basement Bath: Before and After”

1. Nicole says:

   May 27, 2009 at 7:49 pm

   D*mn! I’m in awe of that transformation. Working on our bathroom now and debating the premounted subway tiles vs. a new fiberglass tub surround. Also, replacing vinyl floor with porcelain mosaics. Never worked with either before so I guess I’m up for the challenge. If I end up half as good as you did, I’ll be happy! :-)
2. Stephanie says:

   May 27, 2009 at 10:56 pm

   Congrats – looks wonderful. I am truly jealous. Our basement is a disaster.
3. Eric says:

   May 29, 2009 at 8:51 am

   Your basement bathroom is gorgeous, just like your other remodeling work.

   I was a little confused by the layout. Which wall of the bathroom backs up to the stairs?
4. Dawn says:

   May 29, 2009 at 2:28 pm

   Eric, in the first photo that you see the giant freezer. That is basically where the washer and dryer is now. :) The wall on the right hand side is next to the stairs. :) There is a small utility room on the other side of the bathroom where the furnace is.
5. Agnes (Glenside, PA) says:

   June 6, 2009 at 12:16 pm

   You’re basement renovation looks fabulous! Our basement is dark, dingy and dungon-like, I don’t linger…just run down stairs to do laundry and run back up :) How did you find out you needed to replace the sewar line? Did you have to address moisture/water issues before finishing the basement? If so, how did you address them? Do you have a stone foundation do you have? If so, did you have to repoint and update mortar veneer before construction? What was your ceiling clearance before construction?
6. Sandy says:

   June 7, 2009 at 2:59 pm

   I absolutely LOVE that tile! Beautiful job.
7. Dawn says:

   June 15, 2009 at 11:24 pm

   Hi Agnes,
   Usually you pay a company to do a sewer scope in which they will thread a camera through and be able to check if there is any breaks in the line or major root problems. We had neither, however the city of Portland required us to replace it as it was over 80 years old and because we were “increasing the load” on it by adding 2 additional bathrooms. Kind of silly but we couldn’t have gotten an approved permit without it. It was a spendy replacement, about $5-$6K that we weren’t expecting. We were glad we did though as there is no way we could replace it after the fact now that the basement is done, and it could’ve failed at anytime.

   We have a poured aggregate foundation (basically cement mixed with a bunch of crap). It had some spots that we repaired and we used a product called Xypex from Home Depot to coat and waterproof the entire foundation. It bonds to the concrete vs. a painted product like Drylok that just sits on the surface and flakes off over time. We also installed a do-it-yourself drainage system from Waterproof.com around the entire perimeter of the basement with a sump pump. The framing is done outside of that drain so that no moisture can infiltrate from the walls if they do happen to leak. Any leakage (which is unlikely) will drain into the sump pump. We’ve never heard the sump pump start up once all winter and we had lots of rain and some other friends’ basements flooded. Ours was fine.

   The height in the basement is about 80 inches in the center (a little over 7 ft), we didn’t lose much headroom just enough for drywall, an inch or two.
8. Andrea says:

   June 16, 2009 at 9:27 am

   Wow! That looks awesome! Thanks for sharing.
9. Jenn says:

   June 26, 2009 at 7:47 pm

   WOW! i love this, and i really, really love what you did with the bathroom. i’m about to jump into restoring one that was ruined in the 60s/70s, thereabouts….very inspiring.