Playroom In Progress

One of the reasons we bought our new house is because it has a basement. And because it is a split level home, the basement is one and a HALF floors away from the kitchen/dinning room. In theory, the kids could play as loud and obnoxiously as they want and I wouldn't have to hear it.

Great plan, right?

Except the kids didn't ever go in the basement.

We had just doubled our square footage. Tripled the number of bathrooms (thereby increasing the odds that I could pee ALONE). And tripled the number of floors in our house. And yet, the kids followed me around the new house like a troupe of mesmerized ducklings.

Whenever I turned around, I'd be stepping on a child or knocking one over. You could find me sitting on the toilet with the door half open and 1.5 kids spilling onto the tiled bathroom floor. I'd walk into my closet to pick out an outfit, turn around and find that I was suddenly dressing to an audience. The kids would shoot hairbands back and forth across my face as I tried to flat iron my hair. I couldn't eat a single morsel without someone yelling, "What's that? I want one. I'm hungry too. Can I have one? Make me one!"

The kids never wanted to go to the basement to play. For them, being sent to the basement to play was equivalent to a timeout sentence. I seriously didn't get it. When I was a kid, I LOVED having a room devoted just to my toys. So what was the friggen deal? Turns out, the kids simply thought the basement was "creepy." I went down to survey the situation and decided that the piles of kids toys thrown haphazrdly around the room wasn't exactly inviting.

And that is how the Great Playroom Design Plan was born. This design is still in the midst of the implementation phase. But the room's as finished as it's going to be for a while. So I thought I could unveil our Playroom In Progress.

Prep work: applying the painter's tape. This is my least favorite part about painting but Jacob offered a decent amount of help.

The kids begged and begged to help. So I gave them a mini lesson in painting. They had so much fun painting that they keep offering (unhelpful) suggestions about new walls to paint around the house. I'm currently working on a Craigslist Ad to farm out their skills (read: noise) to other homes. ("Painters for hire. Free labor in exchange for a meal of fish crackers and apple slices. May follow you to the bathroom and belt out fart songs without warning").

Serious business. 

The finished blue walls. 

Then I sent the kids to bed, tuned the radio to catch the commentary at the end of that day's Seahawks game, opened a can of Diet Dr. Pepper, and got to work painting some clouds. These clouds have been brought to you by several viewings of "how to pain clouds" youtube videos (and maybe one or two funny cat videos for good measure and a much needed down time activity).

There is a closet in the basement. I have big plans for this closet. But for now, it's houses a kitchen playset that I found used on the internet. 

I played around with toy storage ideas for several day before finally settling on these book cases from Target with special storage cubes These shelves were SO easy to put together. And you don't need any extra tools. Well, you do need a drill to anchor it to the wall...which is why it remains unanchored. I'm too afraid to touch my husband's tools. If I used one and didn't put it back exactly the way he likes it, I could be blacklisted from ever touching his nice things ever again. (Note to self, buy own set a tools.)

And so...here is phase I of the playroom roll out. I'm very pleased with how it turned out. And the kids actually play down there now!!