Basement Remodel With Painted Exposed Ceiling
I have waited so long to make this post, and even though we are not done yet, I just have to share our progress.
Finishing our basement wasn't something I thought we would ever do. With the exception of all of out fitness equipment, it remained a big empty space. As our son has grown older, we have started to feel that creating a fun area, might be a good thing for us and so, we started thinking about adding on a theater area, gym area and rec area.....what better place than the unused basement!
The one thing we agreed on, we didn't want to lose ceiling height by putting in a drop ceiling or sheet rock, so I started researching alternatives. What I found were basement designs where the home owners were painting the rough ceiling and beams black. It gives a loft/industrial feel and I, FELL IN LOVE!!!
And now that our project is nearly complete....we still need to choose carpeting, furniture and decor....I am ready to share some photos. Hope you like! :)
Before...
Drywall
Decorative touches
Finished product minus flooring and furnishing
What do you think of our idea to paint the ceiling and leave it exposed?
*wall paint is Wickham grey by Benjamin Moore*
UPDATE:
Finally got the carpet installed and we are putting together the gym and waiting on the arrival of our theater chairs. I'm still working on art work for the new spaces and we have to have someone take apart our pool table and move it downstairs but it's coming along.
Comments
Thanks!
Very, very nice and your blog is a life saver. We are remodeling a 70’s house for our downsize, but the ceiling is full of newly sheet rocked “boxes” which hide the heating/air components. White is not right at all because all the different angles give off shadows.
Could you share the ceiling paint color and the finish you chose?
All the lighting is recessed with the theater side having a dimmer switch. Our contractor left us a box where we will be able to add a hanging light, over where the pool table will sit.
The ceiling is not insulated but behind the walls is insulated. We didn't alter the ceiling in any way other than neatening up all wires and painting. I honestly have no idea how much paint they used for the ceiling. I know we have a 5 gallon pail that they left us and it still has a little bit of paint left.
Everything was cleaned before they painted. We had the ceiling and whole basement professionally done so I really have no idea what type of paint sprayer they used. All the can lights were added after the ceiling was painted.
There is no trim on the can lights. If you are having problems finding black trim you could always paint them. Our cans are 6". Have fun with your remodel!
There is insulation behind the walls and it is covered by plastic. We have had absolutely no issues with any insulation in the air.
Yeah, also, I'm assuming Lynn's exterior walls are done the same as ours--there is a top plate (i.e. a 2x4) that the studs are attached to, so that seals off the top of the wall behind the drywall--i.e. there is no open cavity on top of the walls with access to the insulation. Though it's not an exterior wall, see the design of the walls on the right in her 2nd pic. Make sense?
basement remodeling contractors marietta ga
Question:
Did you immediately start painting the beams or did you do any prep work like sanding, filling etc? Thank you
Hopefully you are still answering questions regarding your basement. We just finished painting our ceiling with the matte black but now we feel like we do not have enough light in the basement. How did you determine how many lights to use. We are using 6in can lights as well. Were yours spaced every few floor joist, if so how far apart.
Thanks for the help
We ended up using a rough guide of taking the square footage and multiplying it by 1.5 to get the equivalent incandescent wattage. That ended up with us placing pretty these strong 6" LED BR40's (100W equivalent, 1300 lumens):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WNSE54O/
about every 6-8 feet (5-6 joists apart), which adds a little overkill. I followed the advice that you can put them on a dimmer to control brightness if it's too much. Better to have too much that you can dim then to have too little, since that's harder to fix. Also, make sure you don't put them too far away from the walls and corners, since that will make the walls and corners seem dark and the room smaller. Here's a diagram of our light placement. The dashed lines are the ceiling joists:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B268JcL5GCNhR0xGRkZVQ0xvRms
Here is what a corner near the workshop looks like. As you can see, plenty bright!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/WcMyX4N6fxexz4qn1
Thank you for providing that information. We currently are using 90W bulbs. I spoke to my contractor and he came up with a plan as well to place the lighting in rows every 6ft. Our basement is about 1500sq ft and we were surprised how dark the ceiling made the basement. Our contractor said the same thing that he would rather we have too much light because he is also placing dimmers on the lights that he is installing.
Thanks again for responding to my message.
Of course you guys already know but your basement is beautiful
Our contractor installed 16 lights and we use 13 of them...the other 3 are capped off and there just in case we felt we needed more light, but we're good with the 13. When we chose where to put the lights we just went by where it felt right to place them. The theater side of the basement are on a dimmer otherwise it would feel almost too bright.
Thanks Jeff for answering Davonchio's questions. I took a look at your workshop photo...ceiling looks great and I love the barn door!
I have a whole bunch I’m existing wires which are going to the beams… I think if I painted the ceiling, the wires it would look out of place