A Month of Gratitude: Day 7

Day 7: My Basement

When we moved from Michigan to North Carolina, we desperately wanted a house with a basement. Mainly because our house in Michigan had one and we had a LOT of stuff in the basement and wanted to have a place for all of our stuff.

However, after our house-hunting trip over Memorial Day 2007, we quickly learned that finding a house where we were looking was hard to find. We found our house and fell in love, but it didn't have a basement. We spent five months with our garage acting like a basement, and then my dad came down for Thanksgiving and helped Steve build shelves in the garage. We instantly had a ton of additional storage that we didn't have before. We also threw everything in the FROG (finished room over the garage) and that room was not usable.

When Gus happened, and I started staying home, I started to see the need for a playroom. All of his toys were in the living room, and the room was being taken over by baby toys. My friend Wendy offered to help me convert the FROG into the guest room and then make the guest room a playroom. We did this like a month before finding out that we were moving. The timing was horrible.

I never got to enjoy the playroom as it was intended.

When we moved to Georgia, we decided that a basement was a must-have. All other things that I wanted (pool, gourmet kitchen with a double-oven, screened in porch) didn't happen, but we got our basement. And it's finished and beautiful.

Up until a few weeks ago, we had not been using it as I had hoped we someday would. All of Gus's toys were up here on the main level or in his room. The basement was not being used, except by the cats to eat and use their potty, and then the guest suite when we had visitors.

I'm not sure what caused me to suddenly want to use it... maybe it was going to Kirsten's and seeing her house so CLEAN and EMPTY. No clutter, no toys everywhere, no junk everywhere. I feel like there are just piles and piles of crap and I'm over it. I want it gone.

So I told Steve I wanted to move everything to the basement. He was immediately on board. We spent the ENTIRE day on a Saturday moving toys, putting up shelves, organizing the bins... but when we were done, it looked incredible.

 Before

 After

The basement is being used daily now and the boys LOVE it.

I've hosted playgroup here three times already and everyone has enjoyed coming to "Toy City." Hugh's PT likes to work with him down in the basement because she can show me things to do with him using the toys that we have.

I've been able to host friends here and I'm having two MOMS Club parties here and will be using the basement.

I am really thankful that we have the space, the comfort, and the awesomeness. I love being able to go down and watch Gus and Hugh play for hours and not ask to watch television or want to play on an electronic device. It's wonderful to see Gus pretend play and talk to himself while he plays. SO FUN!!