SUNDAY SNEAK PEEK

My goal for the rest of 2011 is to change one of the rooms in our walk-out basement from a playroom to a mudroom. And to achieve mental stability. But let's concentrate on the basement first - it's a much more realistic proposition. First of all, I use the word "playroom" loosely. It's really a room at the bottom of a staircase, with a door to the backyard and another door to the garage, where all the shit that the kids don't really play with is stored. There's a kitchenette with a mini fridge and cabinets, and Mercy's bedroom is next door. There's a full bathroom/laundry room off of it, too. But a playroom? Not really. The kids prefer to play in the living room, which of course is the one room in the house I'd like to be clean and neat and nice, and not full of fucking Star Wars figures and Silly Putty and Transformers. So that worked out really well for me.

The Kids Who Don't Play in the Playroom

When we moved in, we had the "playroom" carpeted. I'm not sure why, but wall-to-wall carpeting made a lot of sense at the time. After the room flooded and the carpet began to rot, it made a lot less sense. So we ripped it up. I think you guys will remember what we were left with (scroll to second two photos, they're a real treat). How fucking gross is that? I'll tell you, it's pretty fucking gross. And the kids never play down there anyway, and I'm sick of my soon-to-be-gracious entryway getting cluttered up with shoes and coats and bags and other crap. So I have made a unilateral family decision that we will all start using the back door instead of the front door. That means Ted and I will park in the back driveway (which is probably what you are supposed to do anyway, and we've been tacky-ing up the neighborhood by parking in the front for two years. We are not the classiest family on the street, in case you were wondering).

This means that the "playroom" has to change into a back-entry mudroom. Which is going to be quite the transformation, as currently the room looks like this:

Door From Garage, Ugly Shelves of Crap, Corner of Unused Train Table

Door to Backyard, Bins of Crap, Ugly Poster Ted Had Before We Started Dating

While here is what I'd like instead of the ugly shelves:

And for right next to the garage door:

And we've already discussed the new floor, which looks like this:

I am clinging to the hope that putting down the floor is going to make a huge difference - it's supposed to happen this week, but Gerard just had rotator cuff surgery so who knows. My next move is to get the train table out of there (Craig's List, right?) and purchase these two items from Target:

and install them where the train table currently sits, gathering dust. If you're thinking that I'm being a little aggressive in the coat-hanging department, you don't know the half of it. There's a coat closet down here, and another one immediately inside the front door upstairs. But for some reason, they are both always completely stuffed and whenever people come over and actually want to remove their coat and stay a while, there's no where to put it. So we've been reduced taking the coats and laying them over the dining room chairs. Which is slightly awkward when it comes time to eat in the dining room and there are coats lying everywhere. The other option is to only invite people over in the summer. So I am desperate for places to hang coats. I might take the thing with the hooks in the photo above and hang it low, so the kids can use the hooks and we can use the shelf on top.

So you guys, what do you think? I'll post photos as soon as the floor is in, and then more as soon as I'm allowed Ted and I make a mature and mutual decision to spend some money on the new furniture. Gerard's supposed to do the built-in thing, but that's probably going to be a bigger investment and therefore something we hold off on for a while.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that we need new doors to the outside. A solid one and a screen door. They are cheap at Home Depot, but I am not ready to even contemplate a trip back to that place just yet. 

XOXOXO

ABC