Finished for now

The basement is more or less finished for now. I had the final inspection completed back in May with no issues. The only minor suggestion from the inspector was to drywall the underside of the stairway treads as a fire barrier to protect the primary exit path. That should be easy to wrap up and I'll do it later this summer or fall.

I really struggled with building my own shelving. I really wanted to use the opportunity to build exactly what I wanted and nicely finish out the room. Well, with a baby in the house and a hectic summer on hand, I conceded that it just wasn't to be.

I'm not usually a fan or IKEA furniture, but I was looking at their Markor series on their website and was impressed by the finish quality and appearance of the pieces. A selling point for me was that they were manufactured from solid wood and not MDF with veneer finish surfaces. Honestly, by the time I purchased the materials, created & finished the parts, it would have taken me a significant amount of time and most likely cost more money. So we went down to the store in Philadelphia and after seeing them in person, decided to go with several pieces.

We purchaed an end table, a storage unit, two bookshelves and a TV stand. I was incredibly impressed with the packing efficiency and with so little dunnage, how they were able to protect the finished surfaces from scratching & damage during shipping. All the pieces were very easy to assemble and the fastening methods were effective and didn't come across as being "cheap"

Here's all the pieces in boxes as purchased.


The end table components.

End table box & packing.

Finished end table.

Storage Shelf packing

Storage Shelf pieces

Finished storage shelf

TV Stand packaging

TV stand pieces

Finished TV stand

I put together the bookshelves on another day and didn't bother with process pictures. Here's a shot of the bookshelves with the TV stand in the room.

And the storage shelf starting to accumulate toys.

Goals now are to continue to decorate and finish out the room. I have a dart board to create a backmount for and put on the wall along with pictures & the required Guinness poster because it's good for you!

TV and sound system will probably be later this fall or next year.