The Basement Refresh Reveal Part 1

It's finally here y'all!  The moment neither you nor we thought would come.  Let me take a moment to remind you of the embarrassing frat house workout area we had before.

Nothing had a place of its own.  Use the roller and chuck it off to the perimeter.  Stack the weights on the weight bench because they're easier to grab than using the weight rack that pinches your fingers.  Keep that equipment we paid so much for because what if we want to use it one day even though we might've used it once or twice the previous year.  Put crap off to the side and we'll deal with it later which equaled never.

This was our view on an almost daily basis as we watched TV to do our workouts.

That stud wall has been our view consistently for 10 years.  (Well, 23 but 10 of it being in the basement every day.)  We had our TV, the old DDR pads that I would use as mirrors to check my form on deadlifts and such, a crap MDF DVD unit, some pics of us doing Tae Bo with Billy Blanks back in the day and who wouldn't be motivated by former Hawaii football mascot Vili the Warrior screaming in your face?  You can also see how the string lights drooped down in your face randomly.  It wasn't pretty but it got the job done.  Certainly, nothing we'd want to show off.

Lest you think the other wall looked better...

(This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.  If you buy through them, I may get a few cents commission toward keeping the blog up and running.)

The old weight bag chains are where the Mr used to hang his sweat towel and the water rower became a nice place to lean our steps against.  We only used the scale on that wall to emotionally pound us into the ground on a weekly basis.
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Here's what it looks like now.

We got a new weight rack that doesn't pinch our fingers when we pick up our weights and I got a set of battle ropes that are tucked behind it on the bottom.  I got a long mat to put down over the flooring when we do them so we don't ruin the floor faster than we already will.  The old media rack on the back of the door is going to have to stay there.  The door is open 99.9% of the time anyway so we'll never see it.

For a side by side...

Here's a look at some of the art details.

I wanted some kind of zen like art on the walls but nothing that actually had to be hung up so I chose to go the stencil route.  I painted the lotus flowers Diva Glam from Home Depot and outlined it with a copper paint pen for some depth and shine.

Then I did a tree of life.

I used Worn Penny paint from Hobby Lobby but it's a few years old so I don't know if they still sell it or not.  I love the way it turned out and it spruces up the space a little bit without being overpowering.  If we ever get tired of it, we can just paint over it.

Now the part we look at all the time...

Looks a little different from the stud wall and Vili the Warrior, eh?  The only thing missing from the pic is the scale which is now on the right but pfft to it.  We took the Brimnes collection from IKEA and hacked it a bit with new handles to replace the cheap ones they give you and I stained luan for the backer on the tall cabinet for some contrast.

On the top, we have all of our most used fitness DVD's and then some fun accents to calm the space a bit with some faux plants and some copper accent pieces to match the handles.  The drawers store a box with odds and ends in it like deodorant, shoe powder, lip balm, etc as well as our Jungle Gym suspension equipment.  The bottom drawer holds our two peanut rollers so they're not just getting chucked around.

I was pretty surprised there aren't many Brimnes hacks out there.  It seems everyone is obsessed with the Kallax and Billy pieces.  Then we pretty much just replaced the handles on the console piece.

I had those bamboo boxes left from the top of our fridge but they just held a bunch of crap we never used.  This way I could still use the backer board they gave but it kind of matches the stained luan on the other piece.  Now they hold tennis balls, The Stick, and extra gear that we need while the drawers now hold our workout clothes.  The basket on top is from IKEA and holds all of our resistance bands and sliders for 21 Day Fix workouts.  I did make my own clipboard too.  When I wasn't looking for a clipboard, I found all kinds that were cute but I had no use for them.  When I wanted one, of course, all of those cute clipboards disappeared.  So I got a plain brown clipboard and found some cute copper scrapbooking paper and made my own dammit!

I use it to hang workouts I print from here and/or measurement charts and workout calendars.  I love it.

Of course, we had to finish it off with new sweat towels too...

It's nice to have a place to put all of our stuff that was just strewn about the basement before.  It's taking some adjustment for me to get used to not having the TV right in front of me since it's about two feet over but other than that, I really love it.  The TV looks so small but it's a 28" and gets the job done.

It's calming to look at and a far cry from what we've been looking at.

The bonus feature I got from building the wall is a new place to put my wrapping paper!  Some of you might remember my tutorial for the Wrapping Paper Wrangler which worked really well.  I had it screwed into the studs on top of the wall but I wanted the wall clear now and the Mr said some might fit in between the studs.  Sure enough...

Every single roll just fit from three different wrapping paper holders!  SCORE!!!

Finally the other wall...

I know, totally blank and we want it that way.  We do wall push-ups here for Shaun T stuff and I'll finally have the ability to do wall sits if I want to.  We'll have space to hang the Jungle Gym suspension stuff if we want to do circuits like we used to as well as space to stretch out to do the battle ropes.  We've got new string lights with a vintage look to them that are properly strung and up into the rafters so we'll never hit them with weights again.

The final side by side.

It feels like an actual gym space now and it's so nice to have the foam floors on the whole thing so that we're not trying to stay in a 4x6' space.  It's so relaxing but is still a great place to kick butt.  The room we have is unreal and we don't overlap into each other's space anymore.  We do have a few of the tiles that were cut for one reason or another and use those to put our weights on so we don't put indents into the floor.  We've dealt with these tiles enough to know they won't last forever and I presume the ones with the wood grain on top will be even shorter so I got extra to replace them as they wear in our regular spots.

But wait...there's more!  Come back tomorrow to see how the other side fared!

Wanna shop our reno?  

Below are links to items used.  (Some are affiliate links and some aren't.)

IKEA Brimnes Combo
Copper Drawer Pulls
Wood Wall Planks
Tree of Life Stencil
Lotus Flower Stencil
Bamboo 5/8" Floor Foam Tiles
Marcy 3 Tiered Dumbbell Rack
30 ft. Pro Battle Ropes with protective cover
IKEA Fejka Succulents
IKEA White Orchid
Cloudnola Copper Alarm Clock
Rosegold Tissue Box
IKEA Fladis Basket
You and Me Metal Infinity Sign

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