Easy DIY Budget Basement Makeover Ideas & Tips

The “Before” Basement

Here are a few home improvement projects we used in our basement space. Luckily, half of our basement was “finished” but completely dated. These few DIYs and products helped us to complete a low-budget basement remodel ourselves.

Design Your Basement

Do you have separate rooms in your basement or do you have some of your space in an unfinished basement? One of the main priorities in our basement was to designate specific areas for different things.

Our basement makeover incorporated remodeling spaces that were finished, adding a creative space for our children and creating a home gym on the other side of our basement.

Easy Ways to Cheaply Makeover A Basement

1. Redo old and dusty drop ceiling tiles
2. Replace flooring if needed (luckily our carpet was in good enough shape)
3. Paint or get rid of wallpaper
4. Paint or update some of the basement molding, doors or beams. Making a few things white can really enhance a space!
5. Add extra storage space in your basement
6. Add extra living spaces, such as a bedroom
7. Decorate using items you already have and enjoy your space for your family
8. Create A Home Gym Space

Easiest Way To Redo A Drop Tile Ceiling

We chose to cover the existing tiles. This drop ceiling product was absolutely awesome.

You can just take the old ones out, but we decided to keep the old drop ceiling tile and just add these covers. As you can see in the picture, it really brightens our space.

The tiles come in 2′ x 2′ covers or 2′ x 4 depending on your current grid set-up.

Tile Installation

The full ceiling tiles were pretty easy to install. I worked in small sections. You take the one old tile down and add the cover. You can place both back into the grid or just the new tiles. If one needs to be cut, use scissors to carefully cut a cover to match the existing tile.

It was amazing that just a nice pair of scissors. You do have to be careful not to cut the tile too small. It will hang down if it doesn’t fit in your current drop ceiling tracks.

I cannot say enough about how much this simple drop ceiling cover product, changed the look of our basement. Once you have a bright white ceiling, you will realize how much your old one was dated and dingy.

Other Drop Ceiling Tiles To Consider

And if you are a price comparer like myself, links to see how much you will pay for the product we used.

I never thought I would LOVE vinyl drop ceiling tiles so much! The best part about our ceiling makeover is that I was able to do a large area all by myself with limited tools. Just take your time and work in sections and you can get a new modern look.

Grid Covers

You can also purchase this product by Ceilume to help cover up your drop ceiling grids. One day we might do it. It does look super nice, but right now it is not high on our priority list.

#2 Basement Wall Makeover

Our basement had ugly ’90s wallpaper throughout the living space. One of my friends said that it looked like it came out of the TV show, Full House (not Fuller House). I had to update it, but when I tried to take a little off using traditional methods, it just didn’t seem to work. 

Use A Wallpaper Sealer

Obviously, the most ideal situation is to fully remove your wallpaper. However, it was impossible in our basement without completely tearing up the drywall underneath.

We had to research what to do with wallpaper and found an oil-based sealer would work.

Recommended Sealers

• This sealer would work just as well. It is the counterpart to the SW brand that we used.
• We found our wallpaper sealer at Sherwin Williams. If you go and ask them about what product they recommend, they will guide you to it. Just make sure you work in a well-ventilated area or that you take a lot of breaks when using the product.

How To Use The Sealer

Before beginning to use the sealer, you want to sand the wallpaper seams. Then you simply roll it out like you would with regular paint.

For a basement, I think it was a perfect solution for our living space. It was a much better solution than trying to take all the wallpaper down and having to patch all the basement walls. 

After it was done, we used a nice neutral, but cool gray.  As you can see in the above picture, you really can’t tell that there is wallpaper under the layer of gray paint.

If your basement does not get a lot of natural light, then you want to probably want to consider using a light color.

#3 Update Some Wood Molding & Doors

In this house, we had OAK molding and doors everywhere! It is very time consuming and a little messy to add a fresh coat of paint to all the molding when you have the carpet already there. I really did not want to have to paint all the molding for this basement makeover.

We chose to paint only the columns and doors instead of all the molding. I am happy with that decision and like to have some warmth in the wood in our basement.

Not only does it take time to carefully do this, but you have to wait for each layer of paint to dry before you can do the next step.

Instead of painting everything white, I decided to follow the steps listed above to make my doors and columns white and leave the molding. This simple painting home improvement project really updated the space while saving us time.

For the doors and columns, the only difference was that I used a small foam roller to apply the primer and enamel paint. I did have to trim around the columns so that I can leave the top and bottom of the molding the wood color.

My days of getting rid of oak molding may be coming to an end after doing every single piece in two houses recently.

#4: Create Budget Built-in Storage

Again, I looked all over Pinterest and Google to find inexpensive ways to add extra space for storage to our basement. There are IKEA hacks I considered and different ways to create more storage. We decided that we wanted a more custom look than just taking a piece of Ikea furniture and redoing it.

An affordable way to create DIY built-in cabinets is by using stock upper kitchen cabinets as base cabinets. Before my husband could install the cabinets, he had to create a base using 2’ x 4s, so that the cabinets would be off the ground and at the proper height.

Before You Order

Before you order cabinets (they will even ship to you for free from most places), you will need to figure out the size of the cabinets that you want.

Because you are using standard sizes, you have to consider how many cabinets you can fit along your wall. You may have to add extra wood in the edges to make it work for your space.

Our DIY built-in design had one large cabinet that opened from the middle to store a variety of toys and things. We then added smaller single cabinets to the sides to complete our basement storage.

Get Your Cabinets Level

The biggest challenge with installing any cabinets is to make sure they are level before securing them to the wall. You may have to use shims (or small wooden chips to make sure the first one is level before instilling more). 

Add A Top To The Cabinets

We then stained to 2 1’ thick, 8″ wide, and 10 ft. long poplar boards to create the top of our DIY built-in entertainment and toy storage center. Once the cabinets were installed, we used wood glue and a few finishing nails to secure the top of the cabinets.

#5: Organize Your Storage Area

My husband and I were going to add other shelving on top but then decided we really didn’t need it. It was a great way to add a more built-in look on a budget.

I have even made some of my own storage containers out of boxes to add another touch of inexpensive DIY solutions for inside the cabinets. 

#8: Create A Home Gym

Adding carpet tiles to the concrete floor on the unfinished side of our basement created a workout space to add our gym equipment. This easy DIY project was a good idea because you can always replace individual carpet squares if needed.

#9: Decorate For A Finished Look

Add Artwork

There are so many fun DIY projects that we did to change this room. From our large string art to using these record cover frames to add DIY artwork to the walls.

Add Areas Rugs

Sometimes you can’t replace your basement flooring. While we would love brand-new flooring, it just wasn’t in the budget. Adding area rugs in your large basement will help break up the space and create different zones. For example, this rug was placed with a sectional to create a family room vibe.

Related DIYs

• How To Clean Carpeted Stairs At Home
• DIY Waterproofing For Basement Walls
• How To Hang Shelves On A Cinderblock Wall

What is your favorite DIY home makeover project? I always get a thrill when I am able to transform something in our home so cheaply. Our DIY budget basement makeover really gave us more space to create a kid’s area, home gym and living area that we needed!