Basement Playroom: Before, During, After.

So yup.  Still pregnant. Which at this point doesn't even seem possible.  But I thought while waiting for this baby I'd finally post some Basement renovation pictures.... Also I'm resisting the urge to randomly cast on for a baby sweater in the hopes that if there is knitting the baby will come.... Logic left this place a week ago.  Here we go!

So the first thing we knew we wanted in our Year of Upgrades Basement Renovation was a playroom for the kids.  They may have to share a room (something that I'm not convinced is bad for them in any way) but at least they'd have a space for all of their toys.  And the dream of not having toys and kid nonsense all over our house... GLORIOUS.  How about some before, during, and after pictures?

Before:

Originally when we bought the house it was a  pool room with a dart board and beer fridge and a whole guy paradise.  We used it that way until we had kids.  Then it basically became an obsolete dumping grounds for all of our random crap.  We just didn't live that way anymore.

The scary thing is this picture was taken after we had organize things a bit.  Yeah.

So much crap.  although the boxes are all base yarn which has been organized and relocated to my dye studio.  Much more efficient!

The walls were just flimsy partitions - 1.5" thick.  Not real walls.  And the rest of the basement, while probably finished at one time, was in complete disrepair.  Also the way the "bathroom" was set up... well... I"ll get to that in another post.  Bottom line was that any useful renovation was going to require tearing out the existing walls and reconfiguring everything.

All of this is gone now.

During:

Walls gone, new walls being built.  SO MUCH DUST.  Our entire house smelled like a construction site.

Getting closer!  You can see the new opening cut in the wall next to the stairs and the other areas almost framed out.

New sills we had fabricated to match the sills upstairs.  Yay consistency!

New Playroom primed and ready to paint!!!

Oooooh the painting.  We decided to do that ourselves to save some monies.  Also we are insane people with the paint colors and no painter wants to deal with that nonsense.  After MUCH debate (and possibly a quick rendering.  AHEM) this is the color palette we went with:



Mainly greys and neutrals.  My thought was that we didn't want to go dark b/c it's a basement.  But we also needed to be real careful with color considering that ALL OF THEIR THINGS are crazy colorful.  So no matter what we did with paint the moment we added in the toys it was going to be a color explosion.  We did end up with a pop of yellow on the ceiling, though.  And also an accent room (more on that later):

Painting finished.  Ready for the new carpet and flooring!

After:

So!  The finished space ready for furniture!

Headed into the playroom.

In these pictures the vinyl flooring still isn't installed in the hallway.... that was all sorts of awful and delayed and...   I wanted to show the space before we put in any furniture and the furniture came before the floor.  ANYWAYS!

It's done!!!  The door that the dude is standing in leads to the stairs, the door next to him leads to my dye studio and the unfinished portion of the basement (furnace, laundry, etc).  I put a lock with a key on the dye studio door.  A Playroom with access to chemicals just didn't seem like a stellar plan.

We decided to drywall one of the block walls.  We left two of them exposed block both to save on costs and because we liked the look.  This is a basement after all.  I then took all of the wiring off of the block walls and ran it through the new drywall so that nothing was left exposed.

Block wall with no wiring or nonsense on it!  Amazing!  Also check out the new sills... they turned out so spiffy.

We completely redid the lighting.  There were just overhead exposed bulbs in odd places.  We ended up doing recessed lights on the two outside portions of the room with an overhead in the center of the yellow part.  I love the way it came out and as Matt will point out it sets up perfectly for turning this space into a theater room sometime in the very far off future.

The super wired wall with internets and cable etc.  It would be perfect for a theater room.  But at this point I refuse to even put in a TV.  This is a play room not a plug the kids in room.  If they want to watch TV they can sit down and watch it in the living room.  I don't want it to just always be on in the background.  So far it hasn't been a problem!

The carpet was specifically picked to be indestructible, speckled so as not to show any dirt/crumbs/kid nonsense, but also soft enough to tumble on:



Even with just the empty space the kids LOVED it. 

And then we added in the coolest toy storage ever (really) but that's another post.  Until then check out the before/after comparison:

Before.  Yuck.

After

Before (although we had already cleared everything out so sortof during?)

After:  New wall configuration, new and relocated electrical panel, new sills, carpet, paint, etc. etc.

Yay for a finished basement playroom!  I can't wait to show you guys the rest of the renovation.  This was only about half of the space and isn't the dramatic part.  Wait until you see the before/after of the bathroom!

The Baby Dude's Room.

So!  It occurred to me as I was taking some pictures of all of our new house stuff that I never posted any pictures of the last round of redecorating that we did.  So I thought I'd take a pictures of the Dude's nursery because I really loved it.

We painted the walls blue b/c we knew he was a boy so why not.

Then my aunt made him this quilt with some pirate fabric so we devised a loose pirate/ocean/water theme from there.  It worked out perfectly because the dude's favorite thing in the whole world is water:

Some stuff was pilfered from gizmotopia - like the red mirror and the changing table stuff.  I refused to have 2 changing tables in our house even if we had two in diapers.  I stand by that policy and am repeating it again.  If it sucks for the older kid to get their diaper changed in a baby's room well, good.  More motivation to potty train:

Some stuff was new.  Like the rug (bought cheap from Target), the shelf organizers for diapers,  and the wooden blinds.

Then I added some personal touches like these pictures.  All of them are kindof ocean-y.  The top one is of Shayne's Boat in Boston, the middle Uros Islands in Peru, and the bottom Bar Harbor, Maine.  It was super fun when he reached the age that he noticed them and would point at the monster and react to it:

But my favorite thing about the room was the map.  I loved the map:

It's a full on national geographic map.  I had the idea because his name means "Man of the World" of doing a map... but all of the kids ones were too... kid like.  So we went for it.

But!  All of this is throwback.  Because shortly after I took these pictures this happened:

BIG BOY BED!!!

So proud of his new bed!

He did pretty well with the adjustment.  There were a few nights of putting him back in bed repeatedly a naptime or two where this happened:

He brought every single car, his car ramp, a pile of books, and some other nonsense into bed with him before passing out on top of the pillow.  Like you do.

But overall he handled it very well.  So last weekend the BIG move happened.  The one I've been anticipating/dreading since we found out about #3.  Last weekend we moved the dude into his sister's room.* 

I had to dig up a picture from 2011 - right after we finished it - to actually have a good picture of her room.

It... well.  It hasn't been nearly as bad as I worried it would be.  Actually they really love sharing a room.  A little too much.  The biggest issue has been that they keep each other up because they make each other laugh.  The first night (once we convinced the dude to stay in his bed) it would get real quiet and he would yell out SHARK ATTACK!!! and they would both dissolve into a heap of giggles.

Another 2011 pic.  She still had her cast!  Crazy.  This corner held her play kitchen for a long time.  Now the kitchen is in the basement and her brother lives here.

Then, last night Matt was at work so I was on my own.  And I had been trying to follow his "leave them alone.  Eventually one of them will fall asleep if you don't go in there and poke at them" advice.  But they were laughing SO HARD.  I had to find out what was going on.  As I approached the room I hear my daughter say "Here comes Mommy!  SSSSSSSHHHHHHH!"  I go inside and everyone is quiet so it takes me a moment to notice.... they had switched beds.  Like full on brought their blankets and stuffed animals with them SWITCHED BEDS.

I'm not going to lie it was pretty hilarious.

So. Yeah.  If those are the problems we're having - that they have too much fun together - I think we're doing ok.  Now to finish sorting/washing/preparing all of the baby gear and setting up a new nursery!

Which pile of newborn clothes will I be using?  Pink or Blue?  Can't wait to find out!!!

* (haven't done a foot note in awhile.  figured not everyone would want to hear all of our rationalizations)  We decided to put the two older kids together in the bigger of the two rooms.  It seemed like a better plan to me than trying to have someone share with a baby who wakes up every couple of hours.  And they are 2 and 4.  It doesn't matter if they are sharing with someone of the opposite sex.  I figure in a year or two when the baby is sleeping through the night / ready for a big bed we'll reassess.  And also consider BUNK BEDS OMFG!!!!!  We also decided that we were not going to repaint any of it.  See the girl was all upset about the room situation.  Which took me awhile to figure out b/c she was super excited about having her brother in her room with her but was then upset but was happy but upset but.... Yeah.  Turns out all of the upset was because she wanted her room to stay purple.  It mattered SO MUCH to her.  And her brother could give two shits.  So he gets to live in a purple room for awhile.  Maybe at some point we'll convince her, maybe not.  But either way it was a small concession to make to have both kids happy and adjusting!

The Year of Upgrades.

So as 2012 was winding down my friends and I declared that 2013 would be the Year of Upgrades.  The year when we say "You know what?  I'm worth that."  We all have had varying degrees of upset and woe over the last few years.  It's time to be done with that.  And quite frankly things that were ok in our 20's are maybe not so ok anymore.  We're just getting too old for that shit.

This has meant different things to each of us.  One of my friends got a kick ass new job.  Another just bought a new car and had her kitchen redone.  As a group we have stayed at hotels instead of on friends' couches, parked valet, and on one occasion flown private (I know, right!).

Random picture of Cleveland and Lake Erie from the plane last time I flew - coach with 2 kids.  Pretty sure that's the opposite of private.

And another one of Public Square from above just because it's a cool picture I haven't shared anywhere yet.

Now obviously alot of that stuff doesn't fit into my Stay at Home Pile of Kids lifestyle.  But I no longer buy myself the cheapest coffee.  And I am currently knitting with yarn that I bought when we went to Peru.  In 2007.  That until now I had deemed too nice / fine for every day use:

Sleeve #2 and Belly week #30.

I deserve decent coffee and good yarn.

Clearly the biggest upgrade we are making in 2013 is to our family.  We're going from a standard sized family to a giant over-sized party that no longer fits in a standard car/restaurant booth/hotel room.  It's going to be awesome.

More of this, please.

The other major upgrade is to our home.  And phase 1 of that was to my Dye Space.  See until now I worked in a crappy corner of the basement using a random conglomeration of stuff that I cobbled together out of necessity.  I never really dedicated a space for my work.  It was always "this will be ok" as I went along.  I literally was using an old dog crate as a drying rack.  I also had to haul all of my dye pots up and down the basement stairs to use our kitchen stove.  Which was a ridiculous situation for a whole host of reasons.  But it worked!  Kindof!

See.

Also on my list of upgrades - a new slop sink, and clean, white paint.  It really is the simple things:

New sink, New 220V hookup for a stove, and New paint job.

The before picture of my dye space is basically embarrassing.  I can't believe I worked like this:

 Which makes the after that much more awesome:

It. Is. Amazing. 

So. SO Amazing.

I was a vendor at A Knitter's Fantasy yesterday - which was the first time I had ever attempted vending at a show that large - and it went great.  I wouldn't have been able to be ready in time, or have nearly the stock that I brought with me if it wasn't for my new space:

Want to instantly upgrade a hotel room?  Dump a few hundred skeins of hand dyed yarn onto the bed.

Which translates to 3 tables full of pretty.

I have many more ideas for the dye pots and I can't wait to utilize my new space on a regular basis.  But for right now we're busy upgrading the rest of the basement.  See we're in the in-between time where the contractor is done and we're waiting on the carpet install.  During which time we need to paint ALL OF THE THINGS:

Helping to paint her new playroom.

But a finished basement is so close I can taste it.  Yay for the year of upgrades!!!

I LOVE my new studio.

So have any of you upgraded anything this year?  Anyone else want to play along with The Year of Upgrades?

During.

So!  I've pretty much been MIA these days.  Which, if you follow me on twitter you know, is because we are in the middle of ripping out a good portion of our house.  Namely THE ENTIRE BASEMENT OMFG:

This was taken before we started demo but after we moved all of the furniture out.  Everything you see in this picture except for the stairs is gone.

And we're subcontracting all of it ourselves.  Which means lots of people to coordinate, lots of materials to acquire, lots of drawings and details to work out, lots of decisions to make, and so many people in out of our house it's ridiculous.  All with 2 small kids underfoot.

STOP CLIMBING ON TEH SAMPLES.

So... yeah.  It's been nuts.  It hasn't all been bad.. Some of it has actually been fun.  Like the trip my husband and I took to Ikea a couple of weekends ago:

Mmmmm meatballs.

We went to the one in Detroit b/c it's almost the same distance as the Pittsburgh one but with 1% less sales tax.  Which, when buying all of the furniture, lighting, fixtures, etc. for an ENTIRE BASEMENT OMFG, is worth an extra 15 min in the car.

This is about half of the stuff we got.  There's another whole flatbed cart not pictured plus the sink, vanity, etc that we had to pick up from their service department.

It all fit!

Yeah we filled my dad's truck.  It took us 7 hours.


The same bridge in Toledo on the way there and then again on the way home.  I thought we'd be home in time to pick up the kids before bedtime.  HAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAAAHA SOB.

The part that has been especially hard is that when you do a big renovation like this is the rest of the house becomes a dumping ground for all of the crap that is being staged.  For example that truck of Ikea?  Now lives in my dining room:

It took the kids less than an hour to turn it into their own personal jungle gym.

We have an extra mattress and a pack 'n play in our bedroom, the kitchen is encased in plastic in the hopes to keep the dust out of the rest of our house, and I don't even want to talk about what's become of our garage.  Oh and with our house in this state of hoarder like dissarray?  I"m planning a birthday party AT OUR HOUSE for my kid:

Kids don't care about clutter, and boxes, and random misplaced furniture right?  RIGHT????

FACEDESK.

The other portion of our lives that is solidly in the During column.... I am now 26 weeks pregnant.

Insert picture here.  I don't have one because there is nowhere in my house to take a picture that wouldn't have boxes or a sink or who the fuck even knows anymore in the background.

I .... well.  I'm exhausted.  Ridiculously tired.  Beyond tired.  So when I'm not dealing with contractors I'm sleeping.  Or trying not to sleep and falling asleep anyways.

So yeah.  Pretty soon there will be awesome Before and After comparison pictures and shortly after that there's going to be a new baby (!).  But right now, the during of getting it all done, is pretty sucky.

Sigh.