Roll Away Your Stone: December 2013

Praise the Lord, our minds finally stopped wandering with the sentence beginning "When the basement gets finished ........." IT IS DONE! And it's beautiful.

Since I moved into 2798 Phillips 2 years ago, I've dreamed of transforming the basement into livable space. I grew up in two homes where some of the best memories derived from time spent in our basement living space. On Harrison, we had an amazing playroom, complete with a fish tank, play school and kitchen space, and treasures like PlayDough and art supplies (the PlayDough made us really popular among the neighborhood kids). The wood burning stove and our favorite VHSes played again and again added to its coziness. When we moved to Windsor, my parents remodeled the basement several years after we moved in to give Pat a larger space in which to live (it's a sweet chilly and dark cave of a room which fortunately I called home for a short while not too long ago) and a cozier living space. Before the remodel, however, the Ping Pong table and many TAG parties kept it a lively space. My vision of my musty "Michigan basement" in the Berk developing into the warm, bright, and livable space stemmed from these happy memories of family and friends.

"And I'm painting my room in a colorful way"

So, with the addition of a housemate in early October, I decided more space would be helpful and thus started six weeks of rotten wood removal, dry wall creation, painting, carpet laying, bar building, and shelf creating. It took the patience of the contractor Nick, my dutiful parents, and my dear housemate Deborah to help me through the decision making, mind changing, and constant dust. Thankfully, Deborah laughed through most of the noise, dust, singing, and transformation. And, luckily, she wanted to celebrate with me in a big way at the culmination of the project with a Bar Christening party. Thanks to everyone who joined us - we have rockin' friends!

Below are some before and after pics plus some shots from the party .. enjoy!