Basement Exterior Concrete Wall Makeover
Today I’m going to share the back side of our house, a spot that’s never been seen here in blog land, and all you have to do is scroll down to the next picture to see why it’s not been seen.
For some reason we’ve never finished off our exterior concrete basement wall. While mowing out there I said to myself I’m so sick of looking at this ugly mess that I’m going to do something about it. (Below are a few photo-shopped ideas I came up with).
Hubby and I had planned on him doing all the stonework on the wall; he was a stonemason for a period of time and hates the prefab stuff that you can buy in the big box stores theses days. I’ve waited for him to have the time to do it the way he wanted and I was no longer being patient (we have been in the cabin 8 years BTW). He agreed to the prefab stuff, but said I’d have to do it myself he just didn’t have the time.
I was fine with that, I love manual labor and knew I’d enjoy doing the work. Off to the stone company we went only to find out it would be $6,500 for the stone and that still didn’t include the mortar. I looked at hubby and said no way are we going to pay that much for stone (especially when I knew we could get all the stone we wanted for free, if hubby did all the cutting himself), so I was on to plan “B”…..
I grabbed my handy dandy paint swatch bundle from Sherwin Williams and picked a paint color for the basement walls. I said I’d live with a painted basement over spending that kind of money any day.
I ended up using 2 gallons of Sherwin Williams Emerald paint in the color “Felted Wool”. I did the walkout basement side, the side porch entrance side (which is a small one foot strip the length of the house) and under the deck on the other side of the house. (Nothing on the front side because there’s a full length porch and it can’t be seen anyway). With our discount I ended up having only $75 in paint. I also painted trim and had hubby add it around the windows and French door. It was already starting to look better.
I wanted a little color contrast so I painted the door green but I’m going to change that to black, it just doesn’t stay clean with hubby and two grubby boys coming in and out of it. Why fight trying to keep it clean I’ll just go with a dark color and eliminate the problem.
I then planted two large pots with perennials and was going to call it good. Anything had to look better than it did before, and I was happy just getting the junk cleared out. But wait while I was gone hubby started hauling pea stone and digging. What the heck was he doing? All my hard work was turning into a mess again.
Stay tuned to what see what we did, you’re going to love it……it’s so much better than a painted wall…..
WOW!! It looks fantastic and I love how you did it on such a small budget. The green trim is so pretty around the door, but you’re wise to repaint it black…and the black will still look nice with your cabin. I can’t wait to see what your hubby surprised you with. 🙂
Jen, I really wanted a pop of color but I’m going to have to rethink that with all the mens grubby hands touching the door.
I completely understand how the back side of your house got sort of neglected. When we purchased our house the back of the house had no personality given to it by the prior owners…. but we have since changed that and it is now so much more usable and it actually feels good to spend time there. Can’t wait to see your results and hear how much time you spend making memories there. xo
Diane, since we’ve done the project we spend time out there every weekend with our kids and their girlfriends. I’m so glad we made the changes!
Wow! What a beautiful but simple transformation! This has my ‘wheels’ turning.
Margo, I’m so glad to at least have this portion done, it makes it look so much better and I’m no longer trying to hide from the mess, LOL
Stone is very expensive, even decorative ones. So paint is plan B. Is your husband building a patio or cutting stone?
Waiting for your next post!
Kathleen in Az
Kathleen, well the darn heat is holding us up from finishing the rest of the project but I hope to get back at it the beginning of next week.
Excellent Post – I look forward to the next one!
Dawn, I totally get the mess. Our back of our house looks the same…it becomes the drop zone and I have to go out there at least one a month and put all the clutter away. The back of your home so different with the painted wall. What an awesome solution . Can’t wait to see your next post. .
Cheryl, I’m glad to know I’m not the only one hiding a secret, LOL. I don’t know why the men in our family think it’s the perfect spot to keep their junk but now that it’s cleaned up I’m going to be a stickler for keeping it that way.
Ok, you’ve peaked my curiosity, Dawn. Waiting to see more!
Becky, the heat is stopping us from progressing at this point but tomorrow a cool down but hubby had to go out of town for the week so I’m hoping at the beginning of next week we get it finished.
I cannot wait to see your labor of love…I know it will be amazing!!!
Thanks Shirley, I wish the heat would break so we can finish it.