5 years in and we are using the basement!

 

We’ve lived in our house just over 5 years. And we are finally actually spending time in our basement. Its been so nice. We have  a mini flood , a spending freeze, and reaching our toy annoyance threshold to thank for this progress.

Here is what the basement looked like last April:

The upper basement: A random collection of stuff. We never came down here.
The lower basement: Boxes of stuff we can’t part with or haven’t gone through, a bunch of pink insulation, and a weight set just out of frame on the right.

 

And Now:

The “afters” aren’t magazine or even instagram worthy, but this space functions SO MUCH BETTER now! Our minor flood this past summer lead us to get rid of stuff and put anything we wanted to keep in the lower basement. Now instead of just storing random crap in the basement, we have moved 90% of the kids toys to the upper basement from their previous playroom on the main floor. They absolutely love it. I honestly kind of love that the space is unfinished. My mom had daycare in our home when I was growing up and we spent most of our time outside or playing in our unfinished basement. Nothing is precious and you can close off the space from the rest of the house. I’m not constantly annoyed by their toys now. They can leave stuff out and continue their make-believe games from one day to the next without me getting frustrated by the mess. We were also able to buy a big doll house for Christmas. The kids can also hang posters and all of their artwork. Our kindergartener also has her much desired desk with a purple rolling chair. She’s in heaven.

A my little pony poster was one of her favorite Christmas gifts.

 

Lots of “fashion store” games with the new mannequin. I much prefer this fashion store to the one that was created on the newel posts of our staircase/catwalk.

 

She wanted the Barbie dreamhouse for well over $100. Found this monstrosity for $60 at Aldi!!

 


 

 

Glad to see this table back in use now that we have a place for it! It was mine when I was a kid.

 

We’ve also cleaned up the lower basement, removed all of the insulation that was falling anyway, and moved the weight set out of the alcove to make it more appealing to use. Parker has been pumping some iron…watch out!

 

Anyone else getting any free or low cost projects done? We made some progress in the kids’ rooms, too, so I’ll share that soon!

Jalene

 

7 thoughts on “5 years in and we are using the basement!

    1. All of the insulation that was showing was pink and was removed. In the kid area, the top half of the walls are covered with a heafty cardboard like material that was installed by our builder. I’m glad you like what we did with the basement!! The kids love to play down there now.

    1. I got them at Target in like 2009 or ’10. We used them in our living room and dining room at our old house, and I thought they were modern and sophisticated enough for those spaces. You can check that post out, too! Just search “younger” on my sidebar. It’s the biggest and best renovation we have done! When we moved to our new house we stuck the rugs in the basement. They are perfect for a kids space!

  1. I want to make my undfinished basement more functional.. my issue is lack of outlets. There are only outlets coming out off the uncovered light bulbs.. what did you do there?

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