Stairwell before/ after

I decided the best way to show our whole basement remodel is to go room by room. Talk about what we did, how we did it, and what we learned from it. Starting with duh dunna duh....The STAIRS! super duper exciting.

 

We did a surprising amount of work in the stairs. Mostly because we needed to update all the electrical in the basement and the electrical panel was in the stairwell. Well 60 years ago that was totally appropriate fast forward to 2017 and that is not a code-able option any more. So guess what we were required to do? Move the entire electrical panel! Sounds complicated? Yeah we thought so too, thus we hired the professionals. We don't regret that in any way. 

We did however, do some of the manual labor to save money with the electrician, we cut a massive hole in the wall that went almost from stair to ceiling (not just the little box you see in the picture) so he could drop the panel (and all the wires) into our mechanical room below. A big hole in the wall meant a lot of patchwork and repairing. I didn't really consider the stairs to be a viable "room" worthy of progressive shots so unfortunately I didn't take many pictures to show you the process of all the work. 

We had a tiny one bulb light in the stairs, it gave off very little light so I knew that needed to change. I searched for months on websites like wayfair and amazon, we checked Home Depot and Lowe's. Most everything that was under $100 was only one light bulb or not our style. I wasn't in a hurry to change it out so I just kept my eyes open. Last week Trevor and I were walking through Costco, we had seen this light fixture before and liked it but weren't sold on it...until we saw that is was discounted to $79.97. 

$80 bucks for a 6 bulb industrial style (which style Trevor loves and was really pushing for but because it's so popular right now everything that is industrial-esque seems to be overpriced.) AND it came with the cool looking bulbs! Isn't it funny how you like things more when you get it for a good price? 

I actually love how it turned out. And I love that there is so much more light in the stairwell.

The mirror was one that I saved from my mom's DI (goodwill) pile about 5 years ago. I have been holding on to it ever since, waiting for the perfect place to put it and I LOVE it in the stairs.