Your basement remodeling is finally complete after months of work. You stand back with your hands on your hips, slowly doing a 360 while you take it all in. This is the moment you have been waiting for.
You expect to be grinning ear to ear with pride overflowing. You're shocked that your brain is feeding you an "uh oh" message. Something is missing. Something was overlooked.
Speaker Floor Stand
This sinking feeling is what can happen after you pour hours and hours and thousands of dollars into remodeling your basement. Whether you did the work yourself or you hired out the work, there is one last detail--the proverbial cherry on top of the sundae--that needs to be accomplished so you can feel your basement remodeling is complete.
You've got the bowl of ice cream--three scoops even--and chocolate sauce and caramel, so just exactly what is that cherry on top that's missing? Let's check off what you have completed:
- Systems: new electrical wiring, water lines, speaker wires.
- Walls: drywall, texture, and paint.
- Ceiling: new ceiling tiles or paint.
- Floors: new floor coverings.
- Trim: new baseboards, window molding, and new doors.
- Built-ins: new cabinets and a bar.
- Bathroom: new fixtures.
- Conveniences: new refrigerator, wine cooler, bar sink.
- Fun décor items: gas fireplace, can lights, decorative pendant lights.
Everything looks great. You carefully planned so that all of your choices worked with your color scheme, and you even added some "punch" in your pendant light colors. The wood trim you chose adds a nice warmth to the space along with the fireplace. You just don't see what you forgot...until you look toward the windows.
Ugh--the glare of the galvanized metal window wells is staring you in the face. You've always been glad you have those metal window wells since they bring light into your light-starved basement. And the egress window wells provide a safety outlet. But those metal window wells are ugly!
You never thought about finishing those window wells because they are outside your home. But now that everything is finished, those expanses of metal really are inside. They catch your eye from everywhere.
You don't want to cover up your windows with blinds or shades or curtains--you want as much natural light as you can get. So, what can you do to camouflage or hide that ugly metal?
You could paint the metal--but you aren't much of an artist. You could build something in the well to cover the metal, but that would reduce the area of the well and reduce the ability to get out through the well.
There is a decorative solution available that lets you attach a thin scenic liner right to the curved metal window well. It's made out of durable, weatherproof, waterproof styrene which is a flexible plastic that holds its shape in hot and cold temperatures. It's easy to roll the scene into the window well and attach it right to the metal.
Once the scenic liner has been installed, the daylight floods in and sparks all of the colors. Since the image is curved, you get an awesome, jaw-dropping 3-D effect when you view it. Now that you have this scenic backdrop, you can decorate the foreground any way you want. You can finish it simply with river rock or other landscape materials, or you can continue the theme with artificial plants and other landscape pieces like driftwood, sculptures, figures, or whatever you want. This makes it your own original creation.
With these images, it can look like you have a woods, lake, river, or mountain view right outside your window. Or, it can look like you live on a golf course. Maybe a serene waterfall suits you. Or if you are in the mood for paradise, you might want the beach with its ocean and palm trees.
No matter if you prefer hot fudge, caramel sauce, chocolate syrup, or strawberry sauce on your ice cream sundae, now you can put the sprinkles and the cherry on top. The finishing touch for your basement remodeling project is a decorative finish for your window well. It finishes that last surface and brings the outside in.
Ah--NOW you can stand back and enjoy your completely finished basement!
These images and more are in the Window Well Scenes® product line which you can see at http://windowwellscenes.com/.