"Ooooo, hooo, hooo, look who knows so much! It just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead! There's a big difference between mostly dead and dead!" Miracle Max
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbE8E1ez97M
Much like being {mostly} dead... that doesn't mean dead! Our basement is {mostly} done... that doesn't mean done! It has carpet and at this point, I will be thankful for that cushy mass of nylon that keeps my feet from freezing on cement floors and stepping on the crunchy carcasses of dead spiders! Our basement has an odd layout. Because I wanted the traditional staircase/entryway as you walk through the front door, the basement stairs divide the basement into several small rooms. I wanted to tear out walls and make things more open, but apparently there are things called bearing walls that hold our house up. Every house has them... who knew? There's also the curious case of why my bathroom was roughed in in the middle of the room? Stronzo! It's always Stronzo! If you don't know who Stronzo is, see my first ever post! The basement had stood finished to dry wall for 2 years. We needed to put a dance studio in at that time so we scrounged up some money and got it that far. The only room that got {mostly} finished was the dance studio so my aspiring ballerina had a space to dance and my theater loving actress had a place to do all of her theater thingies. The rest was cold, dirty and honestly scary. The Boy swears it's haunted, but I believe it's just the large cardboard cutout of Darth Vader we've had since his 5th birthday party. Darth stands guard over our storage room, so don't be planning a heist of our stewed tomatoes or you'll have Luke's father to deal with. I must stray from our basement discussion for a small memory. When The Boy was 4, I'll never forget when he informed us that his favorite Darth's were Darth Vader, Darth Maul and Darth Brooks! Now back to our basement... Nobody likes a cold, scary basement that is haunted by Darth Vader and dead spider carcasses so we scrimped and saved to get the rest {mostly} finished. I have a lot of ideas for it, but considering my commitment issues and the fact that it will take time and money, the upstairs projects will probably take precedence over my dreams for the basement! We do, however, need to get the bathroom in the middle of the room finished sooner than later. Yes, we left the bathroom where it was only because when they told me how much it would be to move all of the plumbing and the drain to the other side of the room, I believe my husband informed them that we'd leave it where it was. I was unfortunately unconscious at that time. So here are some pics of our super neutral basement that hopefully will not be super neutral for long. {Don't fool yourself, it will stay this way for many years!}
Here is the top of the stairway heading down. We still have yet to correct the paint that the original "painter" did. The painter we used for the basement said that after we'd been in for about 5 years, he'd feel comfortable coming back and correcting the settling and painting the main level. So... next year folks!
The lower half of the stairs. No, we're changing the color of the paint. It will have more gray tones rather than golden beige. I know you're all judging my carpet/paint colors right now! ;)
This is the game room. We will be adding a air hockey table, a Foosball table, hopefully some old arcade games {Pacman anyone?} and some seating. Plus we want to make the "cupboard under the stairs", which is the door you see on the right, a Harry Potter room. I'm hoping it stays the Harry Potter room and not the make out cupboard. Do you think that Harry had surveillance cameras in his "cupboard under the stairs"? I think ours will! The doorway on the left is the entrance to the studio. We're going to be adding a sliding barn door here.
This is the studio. It's about 26x16 so it gives my girls plenty of room to get jiggy. If you don't think a pointe ballerina can get jiggy, you should see her tap on pointe! She's brilliant! ;) Also, no we haven't buried the TV cords yet. We completely planned to have the electrician do it when he hooked everything up and then forgot. Dang!
This is the other exit to the studio and looking at the entrance to the movie theater. It too will have a sliding barn door. I'll add movie posters to the hallway and a theater sign above the entrance. That door you see is the utility room where there is still concrete floors with crunchy spider carcasses. Avoid!
You've been introduced to our make out cupboard, let me introduce you to the make out room... I mean movie theater! It's smaller than most, but can fit 8 of the movie recliners and it has a kitchenette in the back. The molding is not done because I want stain grade molding and pillars. Apparently, we're not millionaires so we have to wait to add that! We also want to do a filament ceiling that looks like stars, but we might need to wait until we reach billionaire status to do that!
This is the hallway heading back to the bottom of the stairs and game room on the right. What is that hole in the wall you ask? Oh, it's only a valve for the fire suppression system our city forced us to put in! {Insert eye roll!} The plan for that little alcove is to add a built in cabinet and shelf system with brick on the wall behind the shelves. Will it ever get done? Stay tuned to the Idaho state lottery to see if I get picked as a winner! At the end of this hallway and to the left is our random room...
The random room! This is the room that is impeded by Stronzo's poor choice for the bathroom location! That door you somewhat see on the left is indeed the bathroom. It was supposed to be roughed in at the back, leaving us with a lovely 16x16 room, but instead we now have an odd shaped room that will be the standing joke of this house. The back area is a gym that is about 10x10 and behind that is a door that leads to our large storage room. I would love to post a picture, but every house has it's unorganized, overflowing demons and the storage room is ours... and a few closets and under bed areas, but the rest is nice and organized. Well, except the garage! ;)
