Home Improvement Take One: Basement - Check

I'm well overdue in showing off the fruits of my painting labor, which came to a halt rather abruptly when we found out for sure that we aren't moving again next summer. (At least, we think it's for sure.) I put away my brushes and declared a moratorium on home improvement, for the time being. I did finish the basement, though. Mostly. (If you look real, real close you'll see some edging areas that require some taping, no problem.)

I wasn't exactly on top of the whole before picture taking, thang. But this gives you an idea of where the basement began.
The ladder obviously indicates that I was already beginning the work when it occurred to me to try to document what I was dealing with, looking a little closer...Reams and reams of wallpaper border.Miles and miles...

I have decided that people who put up wall border should be fined. Kind of like the Italian Financial Police (yes, there is such a thing) who go sniffing around knocking on doors checking to see how many radios and Tv sets you own so they can tax you for them. "And how many rooms in your home have wallpaper border?"

Or maybe a little cash compensation come closing time when you buy a house that has the stuff in it -- unless the buyer is in agreement that it's in good taste, which it never is. Wallpaper will make a comeback someday, I do believe. But wall border should just slink away quietly and acknowledge that it had a good run while it lasted.

Removing the border took weeks and weeks. A mile here, a mile there. The more time I spent on that ladder, the less time I concerned myself with what was underneath it. The basement looked more and more like this...
...and I couldn't bring myself to care. I was on a mission; there was no time for parental oversight.

But all that's behind me now, I'm sure of it. Once the border was finally gone I could paint, and that is gratifying. Because I love my basement, I really do. Love love love!

And don't you? I mean look at it! The space! The opportunity! The color! (That's Sherwin William's safari for you fellow paint freaks out there.) Alles in Ordnung now, thank you very much.

We've lived in apartments with balconies a quarter the size of this basement. We've lived in "stairwell housing" with no direct outside access at all. We've had houses with yards the size of postage stamps. We've never had a basement before -- a livable one, that is.

This affects your entire life when you have small children. No "sending them outside to play", or "go downstairs if you're going to run around like that" when it's dark or rainy out. Even though I still find my little ones inexplicably under my feet whenever I'm in the kitchen making me wonder why we're paying the taxes or the size of our mortgage to have all this space if they're not going to use it ... at least I have the option to threaten them with banishment.

And really, they love the basement, too. It's their very own romper room. Perfect for rolling around and relishing the fresh just-vacuumed of it all...

Or for pretending they're animals...
Like deers butting heads (or maybe it was rhinos?)... Or just standing on those heads...
And don't forget the dancing. We mustn't forget that...
Or the bowing...
And the trains. Oh, the trains! Even though I got this great deal on a train table at the Thrift Store a few months back, Sean-Peter still prefers to spread out a big track on the floor.

His passion for them has not waned in the slightest.

Olivia's interest is a little differently motivated. "Look, I made a C!" Oh, and then there's the laundry. *sigh*
Basements may not do the laundry for you, but at least it's a place where you can put it out of your sight. Even if sorting is a foregone endeavor when the kids make like it's fodder for building a fort. At least that means they're not under my feet in the kitchen. Because now that it's cold again? They won't can't stay outside forever, catching snowflakes. Or just looking cute.

But there's always the train way station our basement, a place I will never take for granted, no matter how long we end up living here.
(Have you ever known a kid so lucky?)