There are so many exciting little projects that are waiting for finishing touches and a last trip to the thrift store, photo developer, or Ikea's "As Is" section....but very soon I will have a plethora of images and ideas to share with all the busyness that's been going on around here.
The old house was all about major projects of the dusty drywall, nails and plumbing fixture kind.... this house is all about the "use what you have" for fun quirky personal touches projects.
I love those the best.
Really the only part of the house not done is the yard (and oh how we dream daily and nightly about the yard) and the unfinished basement.
Now, even the "unfinished-ness" of said basement is more of the "half finished", put-down-an-area-rug kind, than the sketchy "no-you-go-down-there-first-and-I'll-wait-to-see-if-you-come-back-alive" kind.
But still we don't go down there much.
It's been a giant pile of boxes since we moved and we're a little burned out from all the hammer swinging we did on our old house, so it's been an easy spot of our new domicile to ignore. Especially when all the other rooms are so much more fun.
Take the kitchen for example... and the little chair and table set I have for the kids. I have been wanting to spruce them up for quite some time now and I finally got around to starting it yesterday.
Trouble is, it has turned out to be a much more exciting, inspiring, thoroughly enjoyable and time consuming project than I anticipated so I'm not ready to reveal the whole thing yet. But I will share some of the process we went through yesterday because it all relates back to the basement in the end...
I was all gung-ho to get started and dive right in like I usually do, and baby boy was right in there too wanting to help...but suddenly the smarter part of my brain said.
"Wait... this will most likely not go well....and be very messy...and frustrating....for him.... and me."
I thought about waiting till the kids were down for a nap in the afternoon, but I was too excited to get started and had other things I wanted to do during quiet time...so in the nick of time my brain got even smarter and said.
"Wait...why don't we take all this down to the basement?...where it will not matter what kind of a mess get's made...where there are paints and paper the kids can have....where there is a change of scenery...and even garage sale boxes for little hands to explore..."
brilliant.
"Thank you Brain."
And it just kept getting smarter...
I set the kids up with some paints and poster boards to divert them from my project and then thought one step further to just strip baby down to his diaper and let him roam free.
A pig in mud, that boy was.
We listened to old Raffi records, pulled out boxes of baby toys (funny how the kids love to play with them still) and photo albums to look at. Everyone enjoyed the field trip to the basement.
"Mom! Can I bring my bike down here?" the little girl asked at one point.
"That's not a bad idea!" I replied.
The world of possibilities was opening right before us all.
It all made me think of those famous Master Card commercials; mine would go something like this:
Unfinished concrete floor: Free
Remnants of old bottles of tempra paints: Free
Boxes of old stuff to play with: Free
Discovering a whole new part of your house to call "home":
Priceless.
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