"Before" pictures of the basement

The house came with a finished basement, but it was definitely not finished to our tastes. We're almost finished tearing it all out, but here are some pictures of what it was like when we bought it. The walls were covered with tongue-in-groove knotty pine panelling, one wall is a brick fireplace, the other end is a bar, and it had the cheapest dropped ceiling ever.


Looking down the stairs to the basement, it was so dark it felt like we were entering a dungeon.


Here's the view looking down one end of the main room. There used to be a window on that wall, but it was covered up when a previous owner installed the fireplace. I'd really like to tear down the fireplace and replace the window (and the window in the main floor bedroom that was also covered up by the chimney), but we'll see how much that will cost. You can also see the dropped ceiling here. The rails were just kind of tied to the joists - not very stable. And they're fiberglass tiles, so we had to be careful taking them down.


Here's the view looking the other way. Seth found that parts of the wall fell down pretty easily. In the back is a bar that Jollyman liked to hide behind (by the way, he's very upset that he's no longer allowed in the basement and gets mad at anyone who goes down and doesn't let him down).


I had already torn down the bottom half of this wall when I took the picture, but you can see how they kind of mixed and matched the panelling in the basement, and not necessarily lined up. Nothing was attached very well, either - most of it just kind of came off the framing with a gentle tug. It made demolition easier, but didn't seem to be the best construction.


I'll post some more later of the "demolition" stage of the basement.