Spooky Old Basement

I am feeling so accomplished right now! (That’s not really the word I’m thinking of, but if understanding occurs then communication has taken place!) I’ve got a yummy chocolaty dessert in the crock pot. (Thanks, bee!) I’ve got some jalapeños waiting to be wrapped in pork fat. (Thanks, Pioneer Woman!) Lydia and I ate a fresh pasta salad with homemade dressing. (Thanks, Parenting!) All my laundry is done…sorta, it still needs to be folded. But at least it’s clean! My dishwasher is running. Lydia went down for her nap without a peep. But the biggest miracle is OUR BASEMENT IS CLEAN.

You can’t understand how big of a statement this is unless you’ve braved those cavernous depths. Our house is about 40 years old. The people who lived here before us had 2 dogs, smoked and uhm….didn’t clean. (The guy’s name was Boris. I may refer to him again.) My dad calls the basement the Pirates of the Caribbean. (Not the cool Jack Sparrow part of it either, more like the musty, dark, something-might-pop-out-at-you part.) So, when we moved in we cleaned, painted and re-carpeted upstairs. We didn’t even touch the basement. Boris had begun a remodeling project downstairs. Basically, he turned a huge empty basement into a living area, bedroom, sitting room, walk-in closet, full bath, laundry room and a scary storage area. It could have been nice. If it hadn’t been for the, you know, cleaning thing.

Well, we’re having this big whole-’nother-post practice for a puppetry festival and we needed a place to set up. Well, my mom’s office is right next door to my house. So, we figured our scary basement was the perfect place.

That’s when Mama and I decided to tackle the basement! Did you ever read the Bernstein Bears’ Spooky Old Tree? My favorite line is repeated throughout, ” Do they dare go into the spooky old tree?” “Do they dare go past the great sleeping bear?” “Do they dare go up the spooky old stair?” This is how we felt! “Do we dare go into that spooky old basement?” “Do we dare pull off the nasty old curtains?” “Do we dare look under this scary old bed?” “Do we dare?” Yes, we dare.

And yes, it’s clean. Well, clean enough to practice. And clean enough for me not to be afraid when Lydia and I go down to do the laundry. And that’s clean enough for me!

You can’t capture the nastiness without the smell of dogs, cigarette smoke, fireplace smoke and uncleanliness, but try to imagine. And check out those sweet curtains that were NAILED into the trim.

Hopefully you aren’t eating right now:

I have some pictures of the finished product. But once we put some scraps of carpet down and a puppet stage up–it didn’t look that impressive. Trust me, it’s almost heavenly down there. My favorite part is the sweet smell of bleach and the absence of spiders!

To see more nastiness turned to prettiness, check out 5m4m’s Tackle it Tuesday!

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