Before and After: A Pink-Carpeted Basement Becomes a Gorgeous, Storage-Packed Dining Space
Homes often have pipes, support beams, or electrical panels that exist in inconvenient places. When moving them isn’t an option, you’ll just have to work around these features to create your dream space. In the case of this wildly stylish basement redo from Kassandra DeFrancis (@YZFhomedecor), she not only worked with the issue — she embraced it.
Kassandra’s basement wasn’t just saddled with thick pink wall-to-wall carpeting, there were also two large platforms built to cover plumbing and bedrock that took up a corner of the room. “The platforms really reduced the useable square footage in the basement, and therefore we really didn’t use this side of the basement,” she says.
In a nearly three-year-long project, Kassandra and her husband decided to overhaul the space and make it more functional for their family. Starting in 2018, Kassandra’s husband removed the platforms and drilled out some the bedrock. “That was a huge job alone,” Kassandra says. “He carried massive chunks of rock from the basement that added up to around two tons.”
In 2020, Kassandra and her husband hired a contractor to fill in the slab with concrete, then “the project went cold for a bit” while they saved up to do more. Still, some of the bedrock remained, as did the pipes, even though Kassandra and her husband had them moved closer to the wall.
“We figured out the best solution would be to build a banquette in the corner to cover it up,” she says. “In the fall of 2021, we finally committed to finishing it. We hired contractors to fix drywall, install flooring, and build the banquette seating.”
Not only does the banquette cover up the plumbing, it also has storage: “The seats and ledges lift up, so we can store board games, and crafting supplies for the kids!” Kassandra says. In Spring 2022, she and her husband finished the design details in the room during the One Room Challenge.
This included painting the walls and banquette (using Benjamin Moore’s Simply White), hanging up new peel-and-stick wallpaper above the banquette on one side and a gallery wall on the other, building a new cabinet (painted Benjamin Moore’s Mineral Alloy), and sewing all the pillows and seat cushions using two-inch density foam and a striped, stain-resistant fabric.
Kassandra’s favorite part of the space is the new built-in cabinets. One is used for toy storage, and the other is used to house their home’s circulation pump. “It truly looks professional, even though [my husband] is not a professional carpenter,” Kassandra says. She especially loves the new hardware on the doors. “The cabinet knobs are so pretty in person,” she says.
Kassandra also revived some secondhand furniture from Facebook Marketplace for a new board game setup. “The legs were in rough shape, so they needed to be painted,” Kassandra says. She used a creamy white paint (Fusion Mineral Paint’s Champlain) to do so.
“I contemplated refinishing the top, but like the contrast with the floor, so I’m keeping it this way for now,” she adds. The chairs were also from Marketplace — a $20 find. Kassandra sewed new cushions for those using a Justina Blakeney fabric.
The couple still plans to add some other tweaks, like a hearth pad for their new wood-burning stove and trim throughout, but Kassandra is pleased with how far the basement has come. “The whole space just feels so much brighter!” she says. “I smile every time I go down there now.”
This project was completed for the Spring 2022 One Room Challenge, in partnership with Apartment Therapy. See even more of the One Room Challenge before and afters here.
Inspired? Submit your own project here.