I am joining Leslie at Time Out for Mom on her Tuesday Coffee Chat. And with how early I am now getting up to exercise, I need my coffee! Today's question is:
One thing I would like to accomplish in 2015 is ...
There are many things, as it is the New Year. I am sure you have many things on your list, too. I have already mentioned some of my plans to budget this year. I want to get fit and eat more healthy. And, of course, I want to be a better wife, mom, friend, daughter, sister, aunt ... you get the point.
But what is one tangible thing I would like to accomplish in 2015? I want for my basement to be purged, cleaned, organized and brightened up.
Our basement is a "wet basement", as they are called here in Missouri, because they typically take on moisture and leak occasionally with strong rains. Thankfully ours seems to have stopped leaking. But if it does we have an intricate trough system in the concrete floor to navigate the water to the floor drain in the shower. The moisture causes camel crickets to breed and thrive. They don't bother me but they completely freak out the kids. Brynne's bedroom is in the dry corner of the basement that maintains a good humidity with the dehumidifier. But she hasn't been wanting to sleep down there because of those darn crickets. And, it gets really cold down there in the winter. I say all of that to say that we are not able to finish off the basement with nice flooring, etc.
It has exposed beam ceilings with ineffectual duct work running through it. Our dinosaur HVAC system sits right in the way. The floors are plain ol' concrete (wish we would have painted them before we moved in). And the walls are cinder block walls. There are only two itty bitty windows, and one is now covered in boards as Brynne busted it out with a ball. There are hanging lightbulbs to light the way, and they make it look even more dingy and shadowy!
My washer and dryer are down there, and we have a really great setup! I have plenty of lines to hang clothes and a huge folding table. But who wants to be down there doing laundry? It's ugly.
The best storage corner of the basement is so covered in buckets, tubs, and boxes of toys, off-season clothes, and things for a garage sale that you can't move around.
I am not asking for anything extravagant. Really I just want to get it cleaned out, get a good deal of the stuff thrown away or donated, and paint the walls a brighter color. I'd like for the kids to have a good place to play should they have friends over and want to spread out all of the toys.
So if we accomplish all of that by the end of the year, then I will be very happy. It's going to take Rick and his motivation level to get it done, though. Every time I go down there I just turn around and hurry back up the stairs.
I hope you get your basement. We are also slowly working on ours as well.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that our basement was finished, was a big selling point when we bought the house. Soooo, to now find out that a lot of it was not finished Correctly -- is a bit of a disappointment. And costly. However, we are lucky in that it is at least functional; if not perfectly so. And normally basements up here are dry - if you just put the taps IN FRONT of the walls. *eye roll*
ReplyDeleteI hope you get the basement you want this year! Making our homes functional AND pretty is a big deal to me too.
I hope you get your basement as well! It's nice to have a place for everything, and to be able to keep everything in its place. Oh, the camel crickets, though......I'm with the kids on this one. They freak me out SO BAD! They get in my home in the bathrooms sometimes (must be the moisture?) and I can't even kill them because they jump AT me when I get within 4 feet of them. I guess if they're harmless it's one thing, but I thought they were like moths and ate clothes & such.
ReplyDeleteI love how your basement sounds, though....even though rustic industrial isn't my style, it's very trendy right now and looks pretty good.....stain that concrete some weekend, use a combination of Edison bulbs and bulbs in other brightnesses and sizes....and definitely leave the ductwork and beams exposed. I would LOVE to get a gander at your basement, so be sure to take photos as you get it purged and organized!
Sorry I got carried away there - design is a passion of mine! Here from Coffee Chat; Happy New Year!
I wish it looked as rustic chic as you make it sound. Instead it looks like 100 year old house creepy. If we could get it completely cleaned out we could easily stain the floors. We have done that before. I don't know if we are THAT ambitious, though. I hadn't heart camel crickets eat clothing. I sure hope not! I do know they attract mice and we don't need that! But they also eat each other. They are just plain gross.
DeleteWe are working on a room at a time. Hopefully you will accomplish that basement in 2015!
ReplyDelete