mini tour of the basement + my cute plate decor in the kitchen

*this was supposed to be posted on the 21st, but it didn't ever post, so here it is now. Pretend like it's the 21st. :) *

We should call my mom The Closer. She's been great this last week at getting some of my unfinished projects done. At the rate we're going, she's going to be wanting to build the toy storage for the toy room next week.

Here is the view of my L shaped living area downstairs. Sectional in the family room, stairs, cutting table to the right by my crafting area on the left.

We hung up the pictures I'm in love with. I love how bright and happy they make my dark (see the size of those windows! At least there are windows though- some houses we looked at didn't have windows in the basement family room at all) basement feel.
If you have any cheap ideas on how to block off that nice 8'10" opening to my craft room to keep Kaitlyn out, I'd love to hear them!

Closer view. It may not be the final configuration of everything in the bookcase, but it's looking pretty good. I love my color coded fabric all stacked up on the lower right. You can only see the red/pink, but there is another section below that and to the left. It's happy.

Here is a view of the very empty closet. Guess I need more fabric and stuff, right?

To the left of the crafty space is the door to a bedroom, which we are using as the office/exercise space and then a little hallway that goes to the toy room. There is an under the stairs space that we have the little play kitchen in right before you go in the door to the playroom.

Back over by the sectional, to the side of the stairs is a doorway into what will be the kid's art area. It has just concrete floors and unpainted walls, which will be wonderful for all the art messes that will be happening in there. At the back end of that little space is a doorway to the left into the utility area and a doorway to the right into the storage room.

So that's my basement! It is marvelous. The carpet is marvelous. (sigh... I'm trying not to remember reveling in the marvelous-ness "before" with my pregnant belly). We have a few more minor (minus getting the rest of the sectional down there) projects, but I love that we've doubled our square footage and cleared out our storage room so I can find and use things again!


Next up- kitchen!


Hanging these plates was fun. I discovered that foam mounting tape would not hold plates after two of them fell down. It all worked out though since the new combination of plates above the microwave works better and the one that fell down is now being used in the corner of the counter top by the canisters. The canisters hide the two chipped corners from it's fall.

Having those up make me like my kitchen so much more. Ew. Minus that pendant light over the sink. I think that's going to be gone VERY soon.
And I still don't love the cabinet color and plan on painting the cabinets white and possibly putting in a new backsplash eventually. Ha- and knocking out what would be the last section of our load bearing wall that would be left by that time (thanks to the stair railing project) and putting in an island.
Seriously, the house projects never end. Hopefully the end result is a house that we love for the rest of our lives though!