Basement Living Room Storage

Coming up with a title for this post was a struggle.  Pretty much how this whole project is a struggle (ha).  Would, “help me decide on built-ins vs. cabinets” make more sense?  Or what about, “should we take out the existing storage to put in new storage”?  Because that’s exactly what I’m trying to figure out today.  And rather than struggle alone and spin my wheels endlessly… I figured it would be a good idea to get some feedback!  So, let’s check out our current basement living room storage and I’ll explain alllll the things I’m thinking about :)

If you didn’t know, we live in a raised ranch house with an upstairs living room, and a basement living room.  Honestly, we don’t spend a lot of “living room” time downstairs.  It’s definitely the spot where we store things… (or the kids might run around).

We’ve had this large built-in cabinet situation ever since we moved in.  It consists of two 48″ wide cabinets, and one narrow shelf.  Beyond there is a closed cabinet where our electrical panel is (ie: we cannot move that at all).

95% of the photos in this post will be from a while ago.  Hence these cute little children!  But figured it was easier to show the space as a blank slate, and then go through the minor changes throughout the years.  Our living room is a long space, but I’m going to focus on this section only, since it’s really the only place we can put furniture.

Basement Living Room Throughout the Years

Before we built our garage, (and during,) the basement was our catch-all space for the tools, construction stuff, etc.

I gave the entire basement a refresh in 2021 for the Fall One Room Challenge.  I’m including the photo above because it’s one of the only ones I have where the sofa layout is a bit different.  See how our big storage tends to end up in this room?

For the most part, we have the sofas in an L-shape facing the wall of storage cabinets.  I use the cabinet on the left often enough, and I really can’t have anything in the way.  Oh, and Tootsie is probably one of the only ones who use the sofas down here, ha.  (She’s not allowed on the upstairs sofa).

Here’s a layout of our whole basement.  The living room is technically the whole way across, but the fireplace and access doors on the opposite wall limit how we arrange that area.  It’s much easier to focus on the small section (top left) as our ‘living room’.

But again, the storage cabinets take up an entire wall – so we don’t put furniture there.  In the past, I’ve also struggled with the open shelves since they were too short to store anything big.  Now, I definitely have some books on them, ha!

As I mentioned, I access the left cabinet the most.  The small white boxes are filled with different craft supplies that I use, the bottom area is for overflow/large craft storage and the big boxes are mementos, etc.

The right side of the cabinet?  While I do use some things, most of that side is stuff we threw in there when we moved in, and haven’t really touched since.  Honestly, I think I could get rid of 50% of that stuff easily.

Which kind of brings me to my issue today… what the heck should our storage situation be!?

Storage Options

Assuming we take out the cabinets we have, I came up with a few different concepts.  (Oh, I should mention that my big issue with the cabinets is that they are narrow, maybe 12″ deep?  I lucked out in finding those Ikea white boxes that fit, but some of my other storage boxes are literally squished in there.)

The first option I came up with, and is what I thought we were going to do for the LONGEST time, would be to build new cabinets on the same wall.  So, take out the old cabinets, build new/deeper cabinets (mostly on the lower half) and then reorganize the storage.  We’d have a ledge to store things (probably plants, ha) but there would also be wall space where we could put art, or maybe even a TV.

The blue section on the right is the existing electrical panel, and I’d make an upper cabinet to mirror it on the left side.  The orange part on the bottom left is where the opposite wall is built-out a bit, so we can’t move that and would have to work around it.  The pink section in the middle would be open shelves to store books.

Good idea, right!?

But then I started looking at this wall…  And I mean, the issue with the living room now is that it’s kind of long and narrow.  So why keep things the same?  Why not build some sort of storage solution below the window?  That way, I could hide/minimize the weird bump-out section.  We could move one of the sofas onto the open wall so they could face each other instead.

If we install cabinets at the height of the bump-out, they could either float a few inches above the ground, or we could fully build-them in.  There are pros and cons to both (involving sweeping, ha).  This wall is 129″ wide, so we could get four 30″ cabinets across, with a small middle section that would perfectly house our outlet.

One of my issues with the basement is that there are like no outlets!  (I think one is in the built-in, which wouldn’t pass modern electrical code where we live).

I’d either leave the right side open, or build a sideways facing shelving unit (the blue thing) to mirror the size of the electrical panel and centre the window more.

With this option, we’ve have to consider the countertop, which is a bit long for something off-the-shelf.

Another idea on this wall would be to install “floating” cabinets.  We would save the cost of the extra long countertop, but still have to put something there.  (It’s easier to find 120″ pieces of wood than bigger).  A con would be that we’d have to put them above the outlet, or move it.  We’d also have a bit of space on either side of the cabinets (around 4″ each way), but it might be easier to get something cohesive looking vs. hacking together a built-in with available cabinets.

Finally, we can always remove the current built-in and use ready-made furniture instead.  The pro for this would be that we could take the cabinet(s) with us when we get another house, we could move them around based on needs, or even sell them.

Here are some of the options I looked at (on Wayfair, Ikea and Home Depot’s websites):

Top Row: Left Cabinet Combo with TV bench, Middle Cabinet (can fit 2x), Right Cabinet (can fit 2)
Middle Row: Left Cabinets (can fit 2), Middle Cabinet (can fit 3), Right Combo: sideboard, TV bench, shelf unit
Bottom Row: Left Cabinet (only 1), Middle Cabinet (can fit 2), Right Cabinet (can fit 3)

Honestly, the possibilities are endless!  For example, the green cabinet in the middle also comes in a narrower/taller version. I could fit four across, and I think the height would juuuusssttt fit at the ledge.

Costs of Built-ins vs. Freestanding Cabinets

Alrighty, here’s where the real problem lies, ha.  The Husband, in his infinite wisdom, has told me that this is a ridiculous project.  Right now, we have shelves that cost zero dollars.  Nothing.  Why would we take out the shelves and then spend money (and time) adding slightly different shelves?  I get it, I do.  Butttttttt if I listened to his “infinite wisdom” all the time, we wouldn’t change anything :) 

Considering we don’t use the basement living room that much, yes, it makes sense.  I could say this is the big update we need to push us to use the space more, but that’s probably not true.  What it would gain me would be more options of furniture layout, better access to outlets, more places to store plants, and most importantly: better storage.

I’d also move one of the big (existing) cabinets into our laundry room to store paint.  My paint stash is currently on an open metal shelf, so a closed cabinet would be nicer looking.

Cost-wise, freestanding cabinets can be anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars each.  For most of the options, I’d consider getting 2 or 3, so it can add up.

Built-in cabinets can also get expensive!  If you’re hiring out a built-in, and depending on what material is used, the costs could be $$$.  I priced out getting ready-made cabinets (ie: Ikea, or even RTI), and I’d be looking at around 500-800$ for Option 2, and 3.  At Ikea, I created plans using the Eket, Besta, Smastad and Sektion lines.

For Option 1 (a custom-made built-in cabinet solution), I would need to make a cut list of the wood, then figure out how many plywood sheets I need.  Right now, a 3/4″ 4’x8′ plywood sheet is around 60$-110$; and I’d need at least 6-8 sheets.

Neither of those costs include the countertop, which could also drive the price up a lot higher…

Here’s an angle showing the basement living room from the opposite way.  Again, it’s an older photo (from when I updated the basement a few years ago).  I don’t dislike the look of the cabinets (ie: I wouldn’t paint them) – I’m just more frustrated with the functionality.

Or maybe… it’s a stuff problem.

As in, if I got rid of/cleaned out all of our stuff, this might not be an issue.  That’s another thing I’m struggling with on this whole basement living room storage situation.  It’s not a storage problem.  It’s a too-much-stuff problem. 

And maybe there isn’t a magical storage solution that will fix everything.

Case in point, here is a current (just-took-it-this-morning) photo of how the basement looks.  There is Halloween stuff I need to organize and put away, the kids’ hockey gear takes up so. much. space. and our closet under the stairs is bursting at the seams.  I did clean up around and under the red sofa a few weeks ago and got rid of a whole garbage bag full of junk/garbage.

The reason I’m antsy about this now is because Christmas is coming (I know!) and we always set up our tree down here.  Plus, we’ve been slowly picking away at basement projects for the last year or so.

So what is the solution!?  I have no idea and that’s why I wanted to reach out and get some feedback.  I started looking at these built-ins almost a year ago (back in January).  If I jumped into the project right away, we would have went with Option 1, and I’m not sure that is the best solution…

Resale is definitely something people often bring up.  Although I don’t think it will affect us too much.  Basically, it’s not something that we’ll worry about.  I’d rather have something that works for our family rather than trying to make it appeal/work for everyone else.

And yes, we’d probably add that missing ceiling time (or two) if we took out the built-ins, ha :)