I was going to take you to the very next part of the upstairs, but I decided to traverse DOWN those dark, thin, winding stairs......to the BASEMEMNT! Because of the work we'll be doing on the banister re-do, our project will extend to the bottom of the stairs and into the hallway.
I soooo missed having a basement for all those years we lived in California. "Too much seismic activity" was one reason we couldn't have one, the other reason was the construction costs for excavating and still passing earthquake code were too high for any of the builders to want to take on. So we missed out on 9 years of basement perks. No cold storage (actually, storage in general was lousy), no cool, dark room to escape the Summer heat. Most of my growing up years, my bedroom was in the basement, and I loved it. Then same goes for Handyman. We'd both move to the basement in a heartbeat, if that's where our bedroom was. Ahhhh.......We do enjoy the cool TV room during the Summer.
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| This is what you see as soon as you get to the bottom of the stairs. |
There are 3 doors on this wall on the left. The first is right at the bottom of the stairs and goes into the TV/Rec Room. The next one is Tornado's room, and the third is the currently un-finished bedroom for Goat and Magician. We're going to be teaching them some home improvement basics and and working with them, but they'll be doing most of the work themselves. Their wives will LOVE having a handyman around.
The doorway that you can see into, is the Laundry Room. It's also on the docket for 2013, and I'm sooooo excited! I currently do all the laundry for our family of 8, in a laundry closet outside the Master bedroom. This baby right here is just over 100 square feet of future Domestic Heaven!
The hallway going to the right goes to Nater and Bob's room (Goat and Magician are in there until their bedroom is done), a bathroom that will get an entire start to finish re-do, and an awkward nook plumbed and wired for a vanity with sink. The Laundry room isn't plumbed for a sink, so this is where my laundry sink will go. I wish I had more pics. I thought I was SO thorough in taking pics, but I'm finding that my picture tour is severely lacking.
On the right - where the buckets and old mattresses are - is kind of a nook that will have a long, narrow table that the squiddos can put the laptops, books, and papers for studying, or fill the whole thing with a lego village. We're planning on making 2 large "windows" in that wall that will look into my craft/sewing room. It took a while to decide what to do with that room because it's odd-shaped and has no window or closet.....but more on that in another post. ;)
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| Looking back toward the stairs and toward the other part of the hall. |
If you look closely at the ceiling, you'll see a few different ceiling elevations. As with any basement, there is wiring, ductwork, plumbing, etc. that reside in that ceiling space. The ceiling changes height in multiple different places and has made my desire for crown moulding have to be put aside. It just won't work. I do have an idea that will hopefully camouflage the plethora of changes. I won't spoil all the surprises right now, though.
You can also see the weird door set-up at the bottom of the stairs. Both the door on the left AND the door that are open, open into the same hallway. The TV/Rec room is the third door, directly across from the closed door. Those 2 doorways are coming out, and so is part of the wall on the left part of the stairs. It will be replaced by open railings like upstairs will have.
Where the hall juts off to the left, is the door to the craft/sewing room, and a large cold storage under my front porch.
There's a little storage space under the stairs and we're thinking of turning either turning it into a play house, or putting a large, cushioned reading nook in that corner.
Where the shelves are on the left, we're going to build in a library. The wall is about 12' long, and the hallway is 6' through this section, so it will be a nice place for a library. On the other side of that wall is Handyman's office. The door at the very back leads to stairs that go right up into the garage. VERY convenient. Where the pile of carpet squares is, is now a Tech area for Handyman. The door on the right is the utility room with furnaces, water heaters, water softeners, etc. Just beyond that is a narrow hallway that has another bathroom, a small storage room, and leads to the second kitchen and TV room. You can see more of the mish mash of ceiling heights here, too.
This is that narrow hallway. First door is a bathroom (one of our 2013 projects), second door is a storage room (Handyman is working on this one, as I write) that will be where I store all my homeschool supplies. The door you see way back there is the cold storage under my back porch. This will be where extra/out of season clothes, seasonal decorations, paint, and toys are stored.
It's quite the hallway, eh?
The list:
· Basement Hallway TO DO:
o Paint
o Board and batten?
o Library wall outside office
o Flooring
§ Carpet from upstairs family room/dining room after laminate is installed
o Crown, base, and door moulding
o Lighting
o Brag shelves for
§ Knights awards
§ Scout derby cars, boats, rockets, etc
§ Scouting awards
§ Pictures from Shakespeare performances, etc.
§ Knick Knacks and souvenirs from family trips
o Reading nook at base of stairs
o Playhouse under stairs?
o Open up wall between hallway and I-haven’t-decided-what-to-use-it-for-yet room
· Basement Hallway DONE:
o None
It's very likely that the only things to happen this year will be the stairs, paint, and carpeting from upstairs moved downstairs. It's not a high-priority area, but I'm anxious to at least have it in a "finished" state, rather than bare concrete and primed walls.
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