The Basement Tour

Back in March, I said that I would post pictures of our basement after Easter, when the kids had all of their junk picked up.

Now, only 6 months later, here they are! Considering how much junk the kids have, I’m surprised it didn’t take longer.

Our basement is heavily used, and therefore, it’s almost never clean. It’s only neat and organized right now because I’ve spent the last two weeks working on it. Seriously.

The basement is what my husband, the real estate appraiser, calls “minimally finished.” This means that the exterior walls are painted instead of drywalled, and there are no egress windows. I don’t care – it’s finished enough for me. It’s very functional, and since the kids have it completely destroyed most of the time, I typically don’t let visitors go down there anyway

At the bottom of the stairs, we have this very retro, 60s “credenza,” which my husband’s family had in their house when he was a kid. He uses it to store a variety of items (I don’t ask what – I prefer not to know). On either side are our two kitchen arm chairs, which we only use when company comes. The pumpkin is still from last year’s garden! Cakesie likes to put it in the doll stroller and push it around like a baby.

(The giant box is my Goodwill box. When it’s full, I’ll drop it off.)

At the foot of the stairs, you turn right. The first door is the laundry room,

and straight ahead is the bathroom that the men of the house (my husband and Pumpkin) share. When we bought the house, this bathroom had nothing but an unpainted, concrete shower. When we remodeled our master bathroom, we saved the yellow, 70s-style sink and toilet, and my husband installed them here. He also painted the walls and the shower with free, swap shop paint, and installed a $17 sheet of vinyl flooring. Voila! A very inexpensive third bathroom. (NOTE: I take no responsibility for the cleanliness of this bathroom. That’s my husband’s job. I try not to go in there unless it’s absolutely necessary.)

Here’s Pumpkin, eating, (messily) as usual.

The next door is to my husband’s office, which we refer to as “the man room.” We have an agreement that he can “decorate” it (IE: clutter it up) however he chooses, and I will reserve comment (IE: criticism). I uphold my end of the bargain by, again, not going in there unless it’s absolutely necessary.

My husband works from home, and this room serves as both his office and hobby room. He’s currently building a model train layout around the perimeter of the room, and he painted the sky background on the wall with an airbrush. He’s quite a talented artist, though he will never admit it.

This is his work table where he paints model cars, and fixes all the stuff that the kids break:

Here he is hard at work. Isn’t he so cute?

The furnace is just outside the office door. I’ve wedged my used clothing filing system between it and the wall. It’s a perfect fit.

When you leave the office, you turn right into the big room, which has two parts – the playroom,

and the craft area. I also keep our long-term filing cabinet, and my bookshelves here.

I’m planning to write a detailed post about frugal scrapbooking and craft room organization in the future, but today I want to focus on the playroom, because I know that toy organization is a problem that most people, including us, struggle with.

The far end of the room has a wood-burning fireplace, and our futon, which doubles as a sofa. The Amtrak blanket was given to us by Amtrak when we eloped on the Southwest Chief.

The kids have a little TV and VCR on a wheeled cart,

with their kid videos on a shelf, just around the corner.

Here’s the treadmill. I had to wipe a thick layer of dust off of it in order to take this photo. Sad.

On the floor, next to the treadmill, my pony-lovin’ Bee has “Ponyville” set up.

Her massive pony collection lives on the bottom toy shelf, right next to “Ponyville.”

Here are our toy shelves, which we refer to as “The U.” The step stool in the center allows the kids to reach items on the upper shelves:

Before Bee could read, I labeled the toy baskets with photos, so that she could put her own things away.

For bulky things, like this foam hopscotch set, I like to use zipper bags with handles, like this one that a king-sized pillow came in. The best storage solutions are the free ones!

On the opposite side of “The U,” the kids have their kitchen set (a hand-me-down from a good friend),

their little table and chairs, and doll furniture ($6 at an auction – it was still new in the box!)

and this massive chalkboard. My Dad used to work at a school, and they were throwing it out, so he brought it home for the kids.

On the opposite side of the room, the kids have their train table, dollhouse, and Lego table (50 cents at a garage sale).

The train table was a $15 garage sale purchase, and it has more than paid for itself. We’ve used it at all of the kids’ birthday parties, because it’s the perfect height for small children to sit on the floor and eat their cake. The dollhouse was built by my father-in-law for Bee’s 3rd birthday. Under the table, we store the Lego bus ($1 at a garage sale-it was full of Legos!) the girls’ memory boxes for their special baby clothes, blankets, and other keepsakes, and a box of extra train set pieces. The train set was free – it was left in a storage garage by a tenant, and was never claimed.