Basement of the Week: Shipshape Style on a Tight Budget

It’s amazing what can be done on a tight budget. Spending around $3,000, and with a fair amount of sweat equity, interior designer Liz Miller and her husband transformed their dark basement into a crisp and bright playroom their whole family can enjoy. Inspired by a few existing elements, Miller added reasonably priced furniture and nautical accessories. Here are the results.

Basement at a Glance
Who lives here: Liz Miller, her husband, their daughter (age 3) and their son (10 months)
Location: Milton, Massachusetts
Size: About 250 square feet (23 square meters)
Budget: Around $3,000

“We thought the existing navy blue banquette and the riveted wall were great, and they inspired us to go with a nautical theme,” Miller says.

The former owners had also installed hardwood floors; the Millers had them refinished.


AFTER: Using several gallons of paint on the walls and ceilings, they transformed the room from dark to bright and inviting. Miller hypothesizes that the former owners had a steamship thing going on, while her take is inspired more by white sails.

For the walls they used one coat of The Home Depot’s Kilz, then two coats of Full Moon by Benjamin Moore. On the ceilings they used Behr’s white flat paint.

“We also painted the pipes and used new acoustic ceiling tiles in the drop-in ceiling over the banquette, which hides the low-hanging pipes,” Miller says.


She sewed the new banquette cushion and the classic anchor print pillow herself, and scooped up the other jaunty nautical throw pillows at The Land of Nod.


Except for the floor refinishing, Miller and her husband did the work themselves. The husband put up the Ikea shelves (back corner) in a way that gives them a built-in look. The shelves hold many of the kids’ toys, books and games, with burlap bins corralling smaller items.

Bins: The Land of Nod; shelves: Ikea





The white paint makes the 7-foot ceilings appear higher, and mounting the TV on the wall kept it from taking up much space.

Miller found the wooden crates stored in her grandparents’ house; they were originally going to be temporary, but she found they added a lot of great character. The coffee table has trundles underneath for keeping toys organized but close at hand.

She purchased the prints from an Etsy artist, then put them in frames from Ikea. Keeping to a tight budget was always a priority. “I looked into custom mats, because the Ikea mats were too creamy, but they were going to be about $75 each,” she says. “Instead I just customized them myself with gray spray paint.”

Sofa: Ikea; throw pillows: The Land of Nod; rug: The Home Depot, coffee table: The Land of Nod


With rope from the hardware store on hand, Miller had planned to wrap some lamps herself, but on a lucky trip to Target, she found these all ready to go. She added the blue grosgrain ribbon to the shades with a hot-glue gun.

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