Family, Gatherings, Health, home, Uncategorized, work

The Basement!

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Photo credit: Wonderlane

I think I may have figured out how I am going to stay sane through all this isolation. I have “discovered” a new room on our house – heck, a new floor! – our Basement. Saturday (I may have mentioned here) we cleaned and organized enough that it feels comfortable down there. It’s an OLD basement (1930 era house) but at least it’s dry. There are five small windows, and the ceiling and walls are painted white, which makes it pretty light.

The joy of it is that I can spread out down there with my mask sewing project – there is room for a cutting table and ironing board. There’s an old rug under all this so my feet don’t get cold – if it feels too cool, I just add another layer. I still need a coffee kiosk, or I suppose I could go up to the “fireplace” niche in my (tiny) bedroom – the Break Room!

But the best thing about this is it feels a little bit “away” from the rest of my life now.  I have a commute – even if it is only up and down twelve steps, it will be a bit harder to get to the kitchen. And with a 900 sq. ft. house, it will give us both some well needed space. Heck, I might even get fully dressed to go to “work”.

Some of the “baboons” here (if you’re relatively new on the Trail, click on FAQ at the top) may already have this sort of space in their abode. If so,

is it useful at this time?

Is there some nook or cranny (attic, closet) at your about that you haven’t explored lately?

If you are living with others, do you have a place where you can get “away” if you want to?

49 thoughts on “The Basement!”

  1. The whimsically styled bungalow I lived in from 1976 to 2014 was not, at a thousand square feet, a large place. But it had a basement that was cool in summer and pleasant at all times. Anything that did not fit with the home went to the basement: the computer, the TV, my darkroom and the big sound system. While the upstairs was hardly formal, the basement had more of an “anything goes” feel. And that’s where I spent most of my time.

    At a party thrown so people living on our block could meet each other, I told a neighbor that our basement had a built-in bar. He said his home had a bar in its basement, too. After a bit of reflection, that made sense. The homes on our block were all built around 1925, right in the middle of Prohibition. And in many of those homes, the basement was where you went to do things you might not want to do upstairs.

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  2. with my girls home from chicago while college shut down and my son who is the manager in a small 20 person office selling dental supplies working out of the hose, my wife doing online classes and trying to figure out how to deal with pre k daycare teachers who are not going to be getting their internships done as usual my house is an active oasis right now
    spencer has the basement, olivia had me bring a desk home that she put in the bedroom so she could set up her zoom central for a full day of classes everyday . next daughter started school yesterday but quite honestly depaul doesn’t seem prepared for online world , son is setting up training and it’s a kick to hear him speaking authoritatively from the bar and couch in the basement
    wife takes the kitchen and daughter has dance class daily in the music room
    i have a house i thought was stupid with my almost empty nest situation and all of a sudden i have multiple enterprises taking place all requiring quiet surroundings
    my other daughter who has worked from home gets to start explaining the sounds of her son in the background without feeling uncomfortable and my son from pheonix has moved back to his significant others parents basement as she starts her new job at hcmc and he retools his work
    i’m an expert at working in the surroundings i find myself in
    no problem but my helper for moving out of the warehouse leaving fort he foreseeable future my guess is i’ll be working with forklifts and pallet racking getting my transition kicked in
    all this talk of upheaval is not really not going to be resolved for a while so the pivots involved in getting life on an even keel will be interesting

    today i am trying to figure out a way to get my masks delivered to hospitals and medical front line responders in place.

    interesting times is a chinese curse

    and i agree to a degree

    but it really doesn’t matter does it?
    we all just respond and do it the best way we can

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  3. Our basement is finished, spacious and dry. One room is for the cats, the canning supplies, and the freezers. One room is a bathroom. One room has the furnace, sink, a plant lighting system with several shelves, the plants we’re starting from seed., miscellaneous items, and memorabilia. We have a big bedroom and a little bedroom, both with egress windows. The musical instruments are divided between these two rooms (except for the piano , which is upstairs). The biggest room has books with shelf space to spare and a sofa. It can be our quiet room for reading. PJ’s husband came to visit a couple of years ago. We will welcome visitors when it’s safe.

    I am no longer working out of town. Now I can help take care of our church’s community garden .

    All of my books, therapeutic toys, and tests are home from the rez . I am reading Daniel Defoe’s Journal From The PlagueYear at gutenberg, com . It is good. Renee will post a new blog topic this evening. I am living at home full time now. Maybe you’ll hear from me more often.

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    1. One of my daughters told me this week that she joined an online book club a friend of hers was starting. They are reading plague books. Journal of a Plague Year was one of the books I suggested to her. I happen to have a copy but haven’t read it myself yet.

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        1. I just finished re-reading His Majesties Dragon, which was one of our Blevins choices. Made me tear up in the end just a little bit. Again.

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  4. Rise and descend into the basement, Baboons,

    Our basement is the best part of the house. We have a family room with a large gas fireplace, an office area that is a chronic mess, a guest room, where I am working now because my sewing machine is there, the bathroom, the laundry and my art studio. My husband hangs out in the office and family room. I use the studio there. It is wonderful.

    Being home all the time, I am noticing areas I could really sort and clean. I keep thinking, “so this is how old people get into such messes in their houses. They just ignore those messes like I am doing.” It is not a motivating task, though.

    OT, yesterday my SIL who is a Dr. in Iowa let me know that she needs home-sewn masks. They just got an order to use face shields with a home sewn mask under it. This morning I sent her all 18 that I had here and I will set upon making more of them after I am done working today.

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  5. Morning-

    We have a basement that has over the years, become cluttered with crap-, er, stuff. We’re working on that. Slowly. This time isn’t really helpful as we’re still supposed to be working. And if I wasn’t working at college I’d be outside farming. Which I did most of yesterday afternoon and will be headed out again this afternoon.
    I spend mornings on the computer and doing college (and other) stuff.
    Kelly just started working from home today. Going from a desk with two large monitors to working from a laptop is sort of challenging for her.
    So we’re working that out.

    While our basement is fully finished, there’s not many windows and it needs to be painted.
    There is a large family room but no windows in that. And two bedrooms that have at least one window. One was my office for a few years before I moved the office upstairs.

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  6. Our house is a duplex. We haven’t been renting out the upstairs for about twenty-five years, so that has pretty much become Hans’ domain.

    The largest room upstairs is the kitchen (no stove and fridge anymore) which has a really nice counter with a large sink, and ample storage both above and beneath it. That’s where he spends a fair amount of time painting, working on his desktop computer, or Facetiming with friends both here and in Denmark.

    We eat a late breakfast together, and then go our separate ways until late afternoon. While he’s upstairs, I’m free to putter around the main floor, reading, writing, visiting with friends on the phone, cooking. My days look pretty much the way they normally do.

    Our basement is a dungeon and full of creepy crawly things. I venture down there only to do laundry. But thankfully, though our house is small, we have ample space to accommodate each of our needs. Of course, now that the weather is warmer, it’s easier to get some fresh air as well.
    Tulips and other early spring flowers are up, though none are in bloom yet, and rhubarb is well on the way, too. It’s spring!

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  7. This is a complicated subject for me. You all know of that I have a wonderful space, my studio, which is on the second floor across from my bedroom. It is very organized and set up the way I like it for all of my paper crafts and rubber stamping. Unfortunately thanks to our current situation it is also my home office from Monday through Friday. This is rough for me because I don’t like having a work feeling while I’m in my studio. I think this is actually the hardest part of working at home for me is that I’m in here. I did try the living room but when I’m down there, the dog thinks she needs to protect me and barks too much. And in my bedroom I don’t have a desk or any good hard surface for the laptop so then my back hurts. So my studio it is. My company made a change in policy last week that we could go in and get our great big screens if we wanted to and take them home for the duration but I’ve decided against that. The way things stand I can move this work laptop and cords; in a matter of minutes I have my studio back at night and on the weekends. But if I have a great big huge my honkin screen here I can’t do that.

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    2. i suggest you let the dog protect you. i predict she will mellow out in a week and the new normal is to have life sounds int he background. you are not expected to be in a cloister nay more

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      2. Actually she’s getting less calm as the time goes by, and I’m not sure why. She has discovered quickly that she’s getting a longer walk every day from YA and she’s now started to cry and whine in the afternoon if she doesn’t get out of the house fast enough. Very irritating.

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        2. YA is the weak link. Although I’ve noticed today that since they spent a lot of time outside in the yard with YA doing yardwork, that Gwen and has not whined

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  9. When we chose our current house, one of the deciding factors was that the upstairs—originally an attic— was configured and had enough space overhead to allow a fairly normal ceiling height. Within a couple of years of moving in, I remodeled the upstairs into a livable space, with sheetrock walls and ceiling, dedicated electrical circuits, skylights and a bathroom. Except for the bathroom and storage closets under the eaves, it’s just one big room but it has two small alcoves, one for a desk and filing cabinet and one for a table and sewing machine. Originally we shared that space and I had a drawing table where the desk now stands but it became quickly apparent that Robin really needed an office space, so I moved my drawing table into my office and the upstairs has become Robin’s space. Yesterday she spent the day working with her Katazome stencils—a dyeing method that involves a resist paste applied through hand-cut stencils.

    My office is in the basement. Although the basement is still partially basementy, previous occupants had divided it up into a warren of spaces. One of those had apparently been at some point a rough and non-conforming bedroom. It’s sheetrocked and has a ceiling and electrical outlets and a door that closes. I had it carpeted for warmth and brought the cable in for internet hookup and set up my computer equipment there. My aforementioned drawing table sits along one wall along with a pair of large metal flat files topped with a cutting surface that serves as my bookbinding station. Most of the remaining wall space is taken up with five bookshelves crammed with books. When I was working more-or-less full time at the computer, it was here that I spent my time. The last couple of years it has been less regular. With the need to stay at home as much as possible, Robin and I have gotten absorbed into our separate activities, she with her fabric crafts and me with transcribing letters to and from the nineteenth century abolitionists.

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      1. You’ve been in Bill’s attic and Steve’s basement. You’ve been in my house, though neither in my dungeon or upstairs, but you’ve covered a lot of baboon habitat.

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        1. I was thinking of that, and I’ve been in VS’, but so have most of you… and for book club Jacque’s, tim’s (but not his current one), Steve hobbit house and in the lobby of his current one… any I’ve missed?

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        3. I’ve been inside Bill’s house, though not to his attic, several times. He and Robin make wonderful dog sitters. Steve’s hobbit house I visited numerous times (including his basement after he moved out). I’ve been to vs’ house a couple of times, and driven Jim to his house, but didn’t go inside. Same thing with Linda’s house, I’ve picked her up or dropped her off several times, but have never been inside. I’ve attended a book club meeting at BiR’s old house on her lovely screened in porch, and lastly I’ve attended a book club meeting at Occasional Caroline’s house. I’ve never been to tim’s house, though he’s been to mine a couple of times. So have Lisa, Krista, Edith, Bill & Robin, Steve, Renee & Chris, vs. I have a sweet photo taken by Steve at my 2012 “garden party,” but have no idea how to share it. Steve, do you?

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  11. I have really enjoyed being home and feeling like a real farmer the last couple days.
    And the best thing of all? Daughter randomly comes out to see me and talk.
    There are days I work at home and days Amelia is home, but they don’t often intersect. So I’m trying to really appreciate this.

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