Welcome back friends! It’s time for my week three update on our “Basement Junk Room-to-Teen Bonus Room Makeover” for the official One Room Challenge! If you are unfamiliar with the One Room Challenge (ORC) it is an event hosted by Better Homes and Gardens for bloggers to share the step-by-step process of a room makeover in only six weeks.

For this challenge the goal is to transform the catch-all junk room in our basement into a fun teen hangout/bonus room for our 14 year-old son and his friends to play guitar, video games, and watch movies. The room is small but we are wanting to give it a rustic, vintage-industrial vibe similar to the photo below (minus the bar).

This week has been extremely slow due to the fact that our work truck stopped working! Well, it is acting up at least so we didn’t want to risk it by driving to Lowe’s to pick up the brick paneling and 2×4’s we needed. Of all times for the truck to konk out! Well, it is never a good time for that but these things do seem to happen at the most inopportune times! Also it was Easter weekend, so we spent it celebrating the holiday. Nevertheless we did end up coming up with more solid plan for the room as well as finding a few little furniture pieces for the room. My husband also came up with a different idea for making the built in’s that the guitars will hang in when he spotted these bookshelves at Big Lots:

This is the look we are going for, except it will be much more rustic and industrial:

My son loves the look of having the guitars showcased in a built-in. Since the room is long and narrow, this will actually be a pretty efficient use of space instead of having the guitars sitting on the floor on guitar stands.

My husband plans to somehow “hack” these inexpensive bookshelves for the built ins on each side of the entertainment center. I am not sure exactly how, but I trust him because he always does a great job with DIY projects.

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We plan to use some type of plank walls or wood flooring for the back of the built-ins to tie in with the wood entertainment center and to give them a more rustic-industrial look. The outside of the shelves will be painted but I am still undecided as to the color until I actually see the built-ins on each side of the entertainment center. It is kind of hard to describe what we are thinking, but the back of the built ins will hopefully will look something like the photo below, with a guitar hanging on the plank walls on each side of the built in.

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The whole hack idea came about when we went to Big Lots just to look for a pot or urn for the Knock-Out Rose bush I got for Easter. We were just sort of looking around the store when he spotted the bookshelves. We also found a super cool industrial stool on sale which is perfect for guitar playing.

While the minor construction and painting hasn’t quite gotten underway, we did get lucky this week with some furnishings. In addition to the tall industrial stool, I also scored these two wooden stools at a thrift shop this week for $7.50 each. Since there will be several kids (or adults) playing guitar at a time, extra stools will come in handy. I have already started giving the stools a makeover which I should easily be able to finish up in the next day or two. I am hoping they will turn out something like this:

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I have started stripping the top with Citri-Strip. I also tried out an industrial metallic gray spray paint on one of the legs. My goal is to achieve an industrial look by restaining the wooden seats a bit darker and spray painting the legs to look like metal.

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Slowly but surely I have been rounding up some accessories, furniture and decor to hopefully give the room a really fun industrial vibe like the one pictured above. Most of the clutter has been removed in preparation for our yard sale and things are far less messy. Because the room is small and is primarily a teen hang out space, I am thinking some black faux leather bean bag chairs with an ottoman might really be good option and possibly Eames lounge chair for the vintage desk.

A big decision has been made: We’re painting the ceiling…black!

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Many of the coolest coffee houses and artsy shops with industrial decor have black ceilings. Our basement ceiling is actually finished drywall, so it wouldn’t look as industrial as the ones with exposed pipes and vents, but I still think it will be a good design move. I was worried about it being too dark but I have come across several pictures of basements on Pinterest with black ceilings and that doesn’t seem to be the case.

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We are also using faux brick around the fireplace and some industrial lighting, so I think the black ceiling could really be a great choice.

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Well that sums it up for this week! Not a lot of work accomplished but at least we are a little more sure of what we are going to be doing! This week will probably be spent painting the ceiling and working on the built-ins. I am started to get excited about how it is going to turn out and I can’t wait for my son to finally have a space to have some friends over for guitar playing and video game nights. He is getting really excited too!

In case you missed them, here’s the posts from week one and two:

ORC Week 1

ORC Week Two

Thanks for visiting today! Stop back by next weekend for week four updates. Have a great week ahead!

Amber