One Saturday afternoon last winter, when it was too cold to play outside, I had four elementary-aged boys and two little girls wrecking havoc throughout my house. That was the day that Paul and I decided it was high time to start finishing our basement. We knew it would be a long process, but our goal was to have it finished before winter sets in again.
In the interest of keeping costs somewhat under control, Paul has done most of the work himself. He framed it out all by himself, then ran all the electrical and installed eleventy-gazillion recessed lights. I’m sure more tasks went into it than that, but since I was stuck on kid-duty every weekend last winter, I didn’t really know what was going on down there. (Don’t you liked how I slipped in the martyr there?)
Finally last spring, it was time for drywall, and there are just some jobs brutal enough to cause even a handy hubby like mine to fork over his hard-earned money to hire out. So a nice team of young Hispanic men spent a few days last April drywalling our basement.
Then baseball season hit, and summer weather, and vacations, and the basement project has been at a standstill ever since.
Now with the arrival of fall and the promise of cooler temperatures, the basement project has been resurrected, and I am once again a DIY Widow. Not that I’m bitter. I want this basement finished as much as anyone. But it IS a bit tiring being on kid-duty 24/7.
But we’ve finally seen the light! You know, the one at the end of the tunnel. We’ve entered the home stretch. The end is in sight. (Are there any other cliches I forgot?) Because, as you might have guessed from my oh-so-subtle title, WE HAVE PAINT!
I’m so excited, in case you couldn’t tell.
While my parents were here visiting this weekend, my walls have been transformed from primer-white to Mexican Sand — which is a really just creative name for brownish-beige.
Now all that’s left is a small tile job near the sliding doors, the baseboard molding, and then I can call my new best friends at the carpet mart and schedule carpet installation!
And that, my dear cyber-friends, will be such a happy day. Because that means I can relegate all toys and clutter to the basement and thus reclaim the rest of my house, restoring it once again to the state of peace and quiet that existed only before three children so rudely interrupted our lives.
What? You think I’m being a bit idealistic? Well, I probably am. But at least I can sentence all rowdy kids to the basement when the outside temperatures aren’t conducive to outdoor play. And for that, I will be very, very thankful!
11 Responses
Hi! We just did our basement ourselves two winters ago, so I can completely relate to the DIY widow. It was hard not to get upset when he was doing something so important for the kids/house, but no one got a break for many, many months.
So, we did move all the toys and even bought a nice wall-mounted TV for the ‘man cave.’ And it was a man-cave for a while, but Im finding that kids don’t go down there as much, they want to be with US!!!!!!! Slowly, a lot of toys have moved back upstairs, esp back to the family room. Seany doesn’t like the basement (too scary mom).
We even painted it this really fun sky blue color to lighten it up and make it more cheery.
Oh well. I am very glad we finished the basement and once the weather turns, I’m sure the boys will go down more.
Let me know how the kiddos like it!
Unfortunately, our office/playroom will remain for a few years since my littlest probably won’t want to play downstairs by herself. But at least I can kick the big kids down there! 🙂
That’s great! We have a lot of projects that did NOT get done yet.
I’m sure you are going to enjoy it.
And I’m going to be very very jealous! Sounds really nice… I don’t envy you the 24/7 kid duty but oh how nice it would be to have our basement done so I could turn our office into an office. As it is now, you walk into our front door and the first room you see is the junky ol’ playroom, instead. As you would say, “Klassy!”
Hi!!!!
I just happen to be on the computer – before the premiere of Desperate Housewives of course 🙂
They’re: 12 (almost 13), 9 and 3.
Uh-oh, speaking of DIY we just found a leak!!!
Off to investigate!!
The best feeling ever! We did our upstairs/attic and when it was finished, I felt like I had a whole new house!
I’m jealous. I live in the South — the true South. There are no basements. 🙁
Congrats!!! You’ll have to post pictures!
When it IS great is when they have friends over!!! THEN it becomes VERY handy!!!!!!
I really hate the person I become when Dh is heavily emerged into a project. I get more than a tad bitter and it totally doesn’t help matters when Dh’s family insinuates that I’m not helping him enough. Hello….I’m doing the grocery shopping, meal preparation, housecleaning and child duty.
Anyway, glad you have a new basement. It will be wonderful to have a retreat !
Wow, you just wrote about my life! We went through this a couple years ago. I was also on 24/7 kid duty and pregnant at the time. The basement was finished and I got to move all the toys down. The Playroom is one large room in the basement that I send the kids down to play in all the time. You are going to love it!