How I space plan (and a basement sofa!)

Hello there! How are ya? Today I’m sharing a little more progress on the basement, in the form of furniture! Yahoo!!! Before, when we used the basement unfinished (which we did all the time), we had a couple chairs and an old loveseat down there. The chairs were comfy but the loveseat was not, and it was small. I hated that we could never sit together.

When we finished the space my main goal was to make the family room area as big as possible. Our upstairs family room doesn’t allow for much seating so I wanted the basement to have plenty of space to sit and lounge, but still have tons of floor space for the kiddo to play too.

So you know how you think you want one thing, it goes all wrong, and then you realize after the fact that it was for the best? Well that’s the moral of this furniture-for-the-basement story.

It was a long process – it started back in July when a friend was shopping for a new sectional. She was looking for inexpensive but big, and this one from Value City fit the bill:

I went with her to check it out and really liked it.  (This one is called the Solace by the way.) I wanted a more contemporary look for the basement, and this was perfect. And this thing is a BEAST. I mean, huge. JUST what I wanted!

I measured our stairs, the landing on the stairs, the ceiling height, everything (I thought…), and figured out that we’d be able to get it down there…which was kind of important. ;)

And then, because it’s was so big, I wanted to make sure it would work in the actual room. So I grabbed my trusty FrogTape and started measuring and taping, right on the floor:

I actually did this once on the cement floor too, before the carpet was installed. I was a teensy bit anxious to get a place to sit. :)

I measured it to the exact dimensions of the sectional to see how it would work. From this direction it was tight but if we moved the elliptical it would be fine.

The shorter side worked too, we’d just have a smaller walk way over there:

Most of that stuff over by the wall was being moved anyway, so I figured it would be tight, but fine.

We lived with the outline on the floor for weeks and then decided it would work and purchased the sectional. Delivery day finally came and I was GIDDY. After six months of finishing the basement we were finally going to be able to really use it!!

But alas, I was wrong. :) They didn’t even bother taking the sectional off the truck. At first it was that they didn’t think it would make it down past our landing to the basement. Then they measured the door to the basement and realized the back was too tall to fit through.

DANGUUUUH.

So I stood in the driveway and waved goodbye to my long awaited sectional.

The hunt was on again and I found another one pretty quick at a local furniture store (Kittles Rooms Express). This time I measured every possible angle to make sure it would work, for real this time. It did, and it was in stock! Score! I took those measurements home and just to make sure, laid out my FrogTape again:

This one had a different configuration that I was hesitant about at first, but now I’m SO glad we went with it.

We lived with the new outline on the floor for a few weeks because we had to wait for the money from the first sectional to go back into our our bank account. And that took awhile because they messed up the transaction. 

I finally went to order the smaller one and wouldn’t you know, it was out of stock. Gah. I know, I know…first world problems. There was a bonus though -- because it wasn’t in stock we got it at a big discount. It ended up costing less than some of sectionals I saw on Craigslist!

I breathed a big sigh of relief when they got it all the way down the stairs on delivery day. :) We ended up moving things around a bit and were able to move the sectional back even further in the room than we originally planned:

You can see the Goodwill moon chairs in the background. Yes, I still spin in them. :)

Like I said, I’m SO much happier with this layout – it makes the space so much more open. The first sectional would have broken up the room big time and we would have had to take a (long) walk around it every time to sit down.

We wanted to go cheap but comfortable and cleanable for furniture down here – I wasn’t going to spend near what we did upstairs in the family room because I plan on this one getting beat up. We eat down there and I fully expect the kids to wear it out. It is microfiber, so it cleans up easily, and I must say, it is SUPER comfy:

Of course I checked out the comfiness on the tush factor beforehand but I was pleasantly surprised when we got it in the house.

The only thing I wish it had was detachable bottom cushions. I know some like having them attached but I like the option of flipping if something gets stained or messed up. The back cushions are not attached though, which is even more important to me cause I hate a wimpy cushion. This way I can flip them every month or so to keep their shape:

I found a couple pillows at TJ Maxx that I LOVE, and I’ll be making a few more to cover the ones that came with it. I’ll show you those as soon as I find the perfect fabric.

This was the first step in making this space comfy and usable for us and we love it. We are down there all. the. time. Finishing the basement is hands down the best thing we’ve done in this house. It only took us eight years to do it too. :)

There’s so many things to do still, first up is the bathroom, and next I want to focus on the bar area you can see behind the sofa:

We’ll have a sink and small fridge hopefully, and maybe a small microwave? How FUN! My goal is that we never have to leave this level if we don’t want. Except for you know, sunlight. :)

I have a HUGE project in mind for the TV wall. Huge usually means it will take me eons. I hope to hurry it along this time.

We found an awesome ottoman for a great price too, but we had a little mishap with that (read = red wine) and it’s going to need a redo. More on that soon too, at least I hope! And have I mentioned how much I LOVE all the wall space down here? So many options for art and photos, I’m so excited about that.

So that’s the story of how I space planned in the basement, bought two sectionals and finally got a place to sit after eight weeks. I’m so glad the first one didn’t fit down the stairs – now I realize it was all wrong for the room. So do you put painters tape on your floor? Have you ever bought a piece of furniture and had it not fit in the house or the space?