“Basements are a signature of life in Omaha,” said Brett Clarke, president of Frontier Builders. “People have memories of being in the basement from the time they’re little kids to hanging out in high school to gathering as adults. Everyone who’s grown up here has a basement story.”
For Liz Hunt and her family of three—who moved in to their 1984 home in the Bryn Mawr neighborhood about 10 years ago—most of the basement story was about wasted space. “The basement runs the whole length of the house,” Hunt said, estimating it to be about 1,400 square feet. “But a lot of it wasn’t usable in the best way. The spare bedroom was massive, and then there was just a huge, unfinished storage area.”
She enlisted Frontier and Marshall Wallman of M. Wallman Design to reimagine the space, which felt cavernous with limited natural light and low ceilings. “I wanted to lean into a speakeasy vibe,” said Hunt, a graphic designer and owner of branding firm DayCloud Studios. She was inspired by local sites like the Omaha Country Club, Barnato, and The Committee Chophouse at The Kimpton Cottonwood Hotel.
“In the 1980s, they didn’t build homes with ceilings as high as they are today. But the Hunts were realistic about the space. They didn’t try to fit a square peg into a round hole,” Clarke said. “What could be seen as a design challenge actually helped us because it lends itself to that moody, club-like feeling that the Hunts wanted.”
The team defined zones, including a kitchenette with wet bar, bathroom, office, entertainment area, and dining room with an electric fireplace; then added texture with a wine rack and minibar tucked under the stairs, rich birch paneling on the walls, and a ceiling mosaic over the dining room that Hunt designed using leftover wood pieces from a custom soffit that runs the length of the room.
Wallman incorporated elements like a bold chiaroscuro chess board floor to introduce visual tension. “Sometimes, adding white to a place where there’s not natural light can have the opposite effect from what you want,” he said. “It can look dingy. There needs to be contrast so that both darkness and light can live and breathe.”
In the bathroom, the shimmering metallics woven through York Wallcoverings’ “Plume Dynasty” wallpaper glint off the ceiling burnished in Sherwin Williams’ “Urbane Bronze” via a 40-hour lacquering technique innovated by local company Fortitude Painting. Even whimsical personal touches, like a black velvet unicorn wall hanging that Hunt treasures, reflect light and inject vitality to the space.
Hunt said they initially envisioned the renovation for entertaining and hosting small groups from their church, but the family finds themselves downstairs, using the entire space and making Omaha basement memories more than they ever imagined they would.
“At first, I thought it would be too glam for every day,” she said, noting that the rest of the house is decorated in a warm, transitional style. “But it still feels like our home. It still feels like us.”
For information, visit buildfrontier.com, mwallman.com, and facebook.com/fortitudepainting.
