About That Basement

You know that dream where you suddenly discover an extra room in your house that you never knew existed?  The excitement builds and builds as you ponder the potential for your new space. 

Could I finally have a craft room all to myself?  

What amazing storage potential!  

Maybe I'll make it into a beautiful guest room with a roll-top desk and little comment cards so guests can tell us how much they loved staying over...

And then the alarm sounds, reality hits and you realize no such bonus room ever existed.

(sigh)

Before you say I'm the only weirdo ever to have this dream, just know that is not true.  A friend of mind confessed to having this dream a few years back.  Needless to say, I was elated to know that I am not the only one.  Granted, this friend and I are both Type A, must-have-an-organized-space-to-function-properly people.  I suppose to us, the idea of having even more space in which to keep things organized is indeed a thrill.  To others, not so much.

If I'm really honest with myself, this dream could be a sign that I have too much stuff - so much, in fact, that I am subconsciously creating more space in which to store my items rather than dispose of them.

Whoa.

Okay, I know it to be true. I have too much stuff.  Fortunately, I'm a work in progress.  I even took two loads to my local thrift store this week.  Woop woop!

Here is the great thing: that bonus room I've been dreaming about is longer just a dream.  We actually have one!

Since I've been a little MIA lately and this bonus room project actually stemmed from an even bigger initial project, I'll give you a little photographic refresher.

Once upon a time (up until about 2.5 years ago), we had a carport...

...which we turned into this:

{Note: the two photos above are old, hence the 4 year old Kendry. We've done quite a bit around the exterior and inside since these photos were taken; I just couldn't find updated photos at the time this post went to print.}

This was essentially our bonus room, for awhile.  A great space for playing and a nice new laundry area for me.  Loved it!  And then we thought "Why stop there?"

When we told people we were finally building a room in our basement, many responded with "I didn't even know you had a basement!"  Hmmm... let's just say its not a room we show people very often.  Remember how I said we have too much stuff?  Follow me down the dark stairs.

There you have it.  Our basement - about 1000 square feet of space and stuff.  A fireplace, a semi-plumbed bathroom (not shown), spare freezer and fridge, a punching bag, and lots of tools and totes.

You know what else it has?

Potential, baby!

  

With three active boys we were in serious need of a good playroom.

So we got to work.  And by 'we' I mean Justin, except for when he recruited me to help hang drywall on the ceiling.  

Have I mentioned how I dislike lifting heavy, awkward objects?  It wasn't a pretty sight, but we managed.

Once the carpet was installed in early April, the toys began their migration downstairs, as did a hand-me-down couch and our TV.  We still have some trim work to do, as well as some furniture selection and decor for the walls, but even in its unfinished state we are loving it.

A whole 238 square feet of bonus space!

The drywall is painted Sherwin Williams St. Bart's.  

Instead of trying to disguise the cinder block we opted to accentuate it by first coating it with Sherwin Williams Irish Cream and then lining the individual grout lines with a charcoal hue.  Yes, painting individual grout lines with a small paint brush is indeed tedious work, but that's what audio books are for.  And I really do love how the walls turned out.

We're unable to do an egress window at this point because the window is enclosed in the concrete walkway that runs along the front of our house.  We settled for just installing a new window.

A few weeks ago I found myself in Seattle by myself(!) and had the joy of visiting IKEA for some toy storage.

See what I mean about my love for organizing?

Did I mention it stays several degrees cooler down here too?

Bonus!

Blogolution: Addition Update

This addition has been quite the undertaking. May I advise you to never start a major home improvement project mere weeks before having twins?

Lesson learned on our part.

But seriously, its been fun seeing it come together, and dreaming of all the use it will get once its completed. We've still got a little ways to go but we'll get there.

Let's recall what it looked like in early spring, shall we?

Just your average carport...with a spectacularly cute orange door, if I do say so myself. 

Did you notice that this carport wasn't even big enough to hold an actual car? Well, except maybe a smart car. (Am I the only one who giggles at the sight of one of these on the road? Green or not, I simply cannot take that car seriously.)

What was I talking about?

Oh right.

Carport.

Addition.

Here is Justin doing more demo after the outside frame was completed:

Now here we are today - drywalled, textured and painted, with the electrical and new fan installed.

The mud room bench will go under this window.

My washer and dryer will go here, with some simple shelving above.

UP NEXT:

 1. Flooring - a combo of carpet and hard floors, if we can ever decide which swatches we like best. There will be hard flooring under the washer/dryer and by the exterior door and mud room bench, with carpet everywhere else, including all the stairs.

2. Painting the concrete walls down to the basement. Although Justin wasn't too keen on me painting the concrete floor (How cool are these ideas?), he has agreed to let me do something creative on the concrete walls. Fun fun!

 

3. Trim work. Augh.

4. Paint the exterior of the addition. We have the paint; now we just need a cool-weathered weekend to accomplish it. Oh, and probably a babysitter too. Any volunteers?

5. Name the darn thing! Seriously, we cannot think of what to call this room. The carport? The utility room? The entry? The laundry room? The mud room? We're open to suggestions.

Before I leave you to name our addition, allow me to share this quick highlight. If you've ever seen the remainder of our house you know it lacks serious storage space - no linen closets, no coat closets, nothin'. More often than not our vacuum gets stored in whichever room it last cleaned. Sad, I know. 

Last Monday I was practically giddy as I called Justin at work to share a major lightbulb moment. It had just occurred to me that I no longer have to store the vacuum upstairs in plain sight because we now have an actual attached basement where things are easy to store and access. Yippee!

So maybe Justin wasn't as thrilled as I was, and maybe the vacuum still hasn't made its way to the basement for proper storage, but I'm giddy just the same.

I leave you with one of my favorite quotes:

"I may be in my own little world, but they know me here."

Progress on the Home Front

I know you've been itchin' to see the progress on our carport addition, so without further adieu...

Exterior

Next up on the outside is painting the new siding to match the house, without making it look like an obvious addition. We're still brainstorming the best way to accomplish that.

Interior

See my new washer/dryer hookup?  Woot woot!

As for the inside, Justin is working on the demo - pulling off the exterior siding, popping out the kitchen window, and stripping down the wall along the basement stairs, which will eventually be just a half wall so as to open up the whole space. The electrician will be coming shortly to do all the wiring before Justin proceeds with insulation and drywall.

Kendry is taking his job on the work crew very seriously.

Busting at the Seams

If you opened this post expecting to see a picture of me and my belly busting out of yet another pair of maternity jeans, the joke is on you. This post has nothing to do with the pregnancy.

Okay, thats not entirely true; it does pertain to the pregnancy in a roundabout way.

Ha ha!  

Round?  Pregnancy?

I crack myself up.

This week marks the start of a project years in the making.

Fifty points to you if you can guess what these babies are for?

I am seriously swooning over those big windows (of which there are 3). Hello, daylight!

Have you figured it out yet?

No?

I'll give you another hint:

What would YOU do with all this wasted space?

And by wasted space I mean a carport that isn't big enough to hold either of our cars,

...an odd-placed door with no steps (see left side of the picture),

...and a spacious basement only accessed by first going outside.

That's right, we're finally enclosing our carport.

Cue the awkward pregnant woman dance!

I may be carrying an extra 30 lbs on my frame, but I can still do a mean running man.

I'll be the first to admit that tackling an addition to our house (professionals will be doing a good portion of the work) less than three months before my due date is a bit overwhelming, and I am a little sad to say goodbye to my orange door, but we've come to the conclusion that it simply needed to be done. In anticipation for the twins' arrival we are transitioning Kendry from his current bedroom (a/k/a the nursery) into the back bedroom (a/k/a bedroom with a door into the carport); but Kendry needs to be able to leave his room without having to walk though the nursery.

We're excited that our basement will finally be connected to the main areas of the house. In addition, we'll be moving the washer and dryer out to this new space so they are no longer crowding the back door.

(2011 photo, but you get the idea of what I mean by crowded)

So there you have it - our next adventure as fixer-upper owners!

Adios, carport.

Hello, expanding living space!

A Little Organization Never Hurt Anyone

Let's not dwell on the fact that its taking me for-eh-ver to truly finish my guest room.

Instead, let's focus on the positive. Progress, however little or slow, is still progress.

And in order to really make progress on the guest room (aka my craft room) I needed to add some storage space.

I found two built-in cabinets at our Habitat store last winter. I used the first one in our basement to organize my paint and supplies.

The second one started out like this:

Now, if you recall, our guest room already holds a king size bed, not to mention a few other finished pieces like my desk, piano bench and nightstand. As much as I wanted to add storage to this room, I knew I needed the piece to blend in so it didn't crowd the room too much.

My solution?  I painted the entire shelf the same color as the walls (Fleeting Green) and finished off the bottom with white baseboard. In a sense, I tried to make it resemble a built-in again. 

Except it needed a little more Jody, so I coated the back of the shelves with a green/white floral contact paper I found at the $1 store.

The top of the built-in was unfinished when I purchased it, so I threw some natural colored wood slats on top.

I also kept some of the original hardware for added character.



Before:

After:





Everyone crafts better in an organized space.

Seeing Orange

It all began with that orange door.

I loved the orange contrast against our house paint color so much that I needed another dose of orange somewhere.

For awhile now this little storage bench (a $5 purchase from my neighbor's yard sale) has been sitting in the carport looking pretty drab.

It has been incredibly useful for seating in that location, but the dingy white was so blah. Not to mention that we couldn't really store anything in it because the bottom board was busted out.

By now you know that I like my furniture to be useful and have character.

Voila!

She got the same orange paint as the door (Bird of Paradise). Then I roughed her up a little around the edges before a final coat of rub-on poly.

Once she was thoroughly dry I installed some new wood slats in the inside so we can finally fill 'er up with some outdoor essentials: gardening gloves and clippers, sidewalk chalk, water guns and a surplus of baseballs.

Can't find the outdoor pillow/cushions your heart desires?

Make your own!

I searched the clearance racks high and low for a pillow in the color/design I was looking for; finally, I took my 50% off coupon to Joanns and picked out a fabric to suit my fancy.

I love how welcoming our carport looks with these punches of color.

Before and After:

This was my first attempt using the paint sprayer Justin got me for my birthday last year.

I would love to provide you with a review of this little contraption but I think I'll need to use it a few more times to really form a final opinion. All I know is that my coats went on too thick for my liking (probably operator error since you can adjust the spray settings), and the contraption started clogging a bit on my second coat. I was not impressed with that mess. However, the bench still turned out great. So until I use the sprayer again I remain an impartial consumer.  (Sorry, Jaim!)