Our Basement Project

One of the rooms that has gotten little to no attention in our home is the "family room" in the basement.  Really our basement is a cold, damp, not often occupied space.  It is the place where our seasonal decorations live, where our extra paper products get stored, where all the boxes that our mothers have dropped off get sorted through.  Our extra and rarely used kitchen items are stored here, as well as our old futon.

As ashamed as I am to say it, this is what our basement looks like right now:


Personal Photo

 I am even more ashamed to say that this is a fairly "organized" basement picture.  You can see our fan, skeleton box & Christmas tree box out in the space.  These are not normally there, but I figured they would add to the challenge that we have.  A lot of stuff & not a lot of space.

But we do have a goal.  Those shelves are a godsend, and I'm sure that you can see the clear boxes with bright pink tops.  This is our goal.  To get everything on those shelves & very well organized.  Looking around on those shelves you can see things like, our old dishes in boxes, an exercise ball, an old radio.  Things that you can't see as well are 144 votives and candles from our wedding, 12 black vases from our wedding, canning jars, old electronics, etc.

We are working right now to go through all the boxes and organize.  We are putting things in their place. However, I do have a plan to brighten this room and make it more inviting.

This is the image that I have for this room:


Personal Sketch

For us, this room wants to become more of a rec room.  We have a treadmill and a bike down here, so it needs to function as an emergency workout room, for days when the weather is bad, or we just don't feel like going to the gym.  The room will also function as a second television room.  This won't be a place where Matt and I hang out to watch TV together, but if I want to watch a movie, or Matt wants to have a friend over and play X-Box, this is the room for that.

I think it's as easy as a set of drapes & some paint.  Flowy white drapes will hang from a tension wire, so that they can be drawn together to show a clean room, or opened in the middle to reveal the entertainment center.  It also allows easy access to the storage shelves on either side of the entertainment shelves.

We have left over yellow paint & I think that having a brighter color on the walls will make a HUGE difference for this small dark room.

I have seen several websites where people have used drop cloths from Home Depot as drapes.  I have a sewing machine!  I can do that!  It's just a simple hem on all sides.

This is our plan.  It isn't something that will be done soon, but I wanted to show everyone that we do have a lot of challenges, and a lot of rooms to finish.  However, I am not one to shy away from a project!  We'll update as soon as it is completed, and to all of our friends, someday we'll have more room down there too!