PCH - Basement Redo

I'm not even sure where to begin in describing the scope and reasons behind this whole business.

We moved into our house and unpacked, settled in.  Then we started noticing an odor...a stinky one, coming from the basement.  It was an amalgamation of many different odoriferous sources.  Cat urine (my personal favorite), dust, and must.  Our basement had thick, luxurious nap carpet.  It was so soft and fluffy, but unfortunately when your basement is really damp and you have some kitties who are mad at you for moving them, you have a recipe for stinkification.

So Mr. LIH packed up all my our stuff and moved it into the smaller unfinished part of the basement and proceeded to rip up carpet.  Our plan was to do half of the room and lay down some vinyl.  Well, as we pulled up the carpet, the kitties moved their pee place further and further to accommodate the lack of the cushy, urination location.  UGH!  So he put the vinyl all over the room.  Well....now we decided we might as well paint and pretty it up, but not until after we get the new basement windows installed.  Oh, yes...this was part of the plan too.

Finally, last week the windows were installed and we could paint.  But I had another wrench to throw in.  What about board and batten????  I loved it, and it would add so much character to a boring, rather dark basement.  I scoured the web and found all these wonderful sites, this one, this one, and this one, also that one.  Let's not forget this one.  I think that ours will be a mixture of most of these.

Now we have begun. (I apologize in advance for the photos, but the lighting down there is dreadful)

Here's my basement.....see the carpet?  So nice and fluffy....and full of kitty excretions.

Here are the walls after painting the top (already primed).

Here they are after putting up the chair rail and battens (you can see where we "staged" some of the battens).
You can also see that the carpet is gone, replaced with vinyl flooring.

The color on top is Benjamin Moore Hazlewood in Satin Finish and we used Benjamin Moore Gloss White on the bottom.




Ok, that's all for now, but I will be back with some finished pictures and a final tally.