Follow Through Friday- The Basement

 As usual, having a deadline spurred me on to complete what I might otherwise have postponed. And as usual, I'm the happier for having done it. I have a plan for our basement. Granted, I have painted with a wide brush - I didn't really look at the nitty gritty details of making every space happen. But I am so much farther down the road than I have ever been. For me, a lot was accomplished.

Roughly, here's what's on tap:
The sketch on the right is a general layout of our basement. It is obviously not to scale, but I have measured to make sure everything fits where I want it. Where there looks like a ton of empty space, there really isn't. There is some openess, though, because we have a couple of former gymnasts in our family that still like to pull the mats out and flip around, so I wanted to allow for that.
The sketch on the left is more detail of our exercise space.

The photograph below shows my thoughts for my creative area and Mary Grace's sewing area. The word Ikea shows up here. When I do get down to making this space happen, I'll be visiting their site.

Next on my list: paint colors. It really hasn't been that long since we painted (2 yrs, maybe?), and when I asked Lou what new paint colors we should choose, he said, "I really like what we have." Before I had asked him that, I had visited Carl Larrson's website for ideas:  http://www.clg.se/encarl.aspx
I really love his art. And surprisingly, the colors in his art and what we already had in the basement were similar. So, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Although we won't have to pick new colors, we still will repaint because we have had some kid powered projectiles do damage to our walls. Hence the sheetrock people visited us to correct that and left nice white patches.

Our carpet is a blue/green and looks like it's been played on by our 6 kids and their friends for 14 years. I really made no decision about it other than it will be replaced at some point. Over in the kitchenette and exercise area, I plan to pull up the linoleum and do something fun with the concrete like the following picture illustrates. Some of you may recognize this floor from the license office. Jean Stark has made that government office beautiful.

I also wanted to include a couple of pictures of items that have been in our basement since we built the house in 1997 and still love. First, our autograph wall.

We had seen this in a home when we when first moved to Bolivar and loved it. It was a blank slate when we moved in, and this is it 14 yrs later. Everyone who comes to our house signs the wall. 

Next: our chalkboard wall.

Luke, David, Nic, Gian (cousins), Hannah & Faith
1997
Always have loved chalkboards, so we made a huge one with a can of paint when we moved in, and had our builder trim it out. (The artwork: compliments of Rachel Casey Hamann - always fun to have artistic babysitters).

I think that about covers it, basement-wise, for this Follow Through Friday. I do have something else artistic, crafty, and inspiring I'd like to show you. Three friends have graciously given me permission to share some photos of their creative spaces on my blog. I hope to have those up for you all in the next day or so.

For next week, I'm going to take it easy, comparatively, but it's something that's been gnawing at me. I have a cabinet full of sheet music and books that needs sorting. This time next week, that will have happened.