Enemy of the Good

Ah, the basement. The never ending project, am I right? I mean, I mention our work on it one to two times a year. But this time, I won't be talking about our working on it. I'll be talking about our not working on it. Because, here's the thing. I've got a list of the things that need to happen. And once they do, I envision it being a fairly decent space. I've got a vision. But...

Life. It's so daily. And I came to realize two things. 1) As much as I would love a pretty space, it can't be a priority right now in terms of time. And money, but mostly time. 2) I wasn't quite sure how it would be used. We didn't use it because it wasn't set up but it wasn't set up because I was waiting until we finished some of the updates but I wasn't finishing the updates because (in addition to a low amount of free time), I wasn't sure how we would use it!

So Christmas day, I made Craig come down there with me and we just set it up in the way I thought would work best. We didn't buy presents for each other so I called this my present - just in case you are wondering how I convinced my husband to spend Christmas day moving storage totes and mopping. It didn't hurt that the kids got a fun tumbling mat as a present and we needed a space to set it up.

And now, they love it! They play down there a ton. Our living room has always been our playroom and I'm relaxed about messes but I do insist that things get picked up daily. But in the basement, they can set up elaborate stores that sell books and fruit and princess dresses. Or arrange big cardboard boxes into pirate ships on an ocean. And it can stay there for days, I don't care. It's still pretty ugly.

Okay, really ugly! I'm almost embarrassed to post these pictures. But if you remember the befores, we are making progress. Albeit very very slow progress.

But when Lucy and Jonah wake up at 6:30 and go play down there together and let Norah and I sleep in another thirty minutes to an hour, I have to say, the ugly seems a small price to pay.