Makin' It Work

11 years ago, Ryan and I rented our first home together. It was a little, white, two bedroom bungalow and we loved it. It had a wood burning fireplace, hardwood floors, a huge deck, and so much character. It also had mould, no city water (in the middle of the city!), the tiniest kitchen known to man, and it was always cold, like guests would leave their coats on cold, despite us paying an arm and a leg to heat it. #IwishIwasjoking. 

When I was pregnant with Lilah, after living there for six years, I decided it was no longer acceptable living conditions(hormones?). We applied to live in the co-op, and after a lengthy application process, got accepted to move in when Lilah was four months old. The benefits were: one more bedroom, a non-leaky, non-mouldy basement for storage and laundry, a powder room, an eat-in kitchen, clean water(!)and it was LESS rent. The goal was to put all of that "extra" money into savings for a down payment on a house.

Fast-forward five years and we are still here with two more kids and no plans to buy a house. We LOVE this neighbourhood, but we would need a heck of a lot more money than we currently have at our disposal in order to afford something decent in this area. We had a frank conversation about when/if we even want to buy a house and decided that it was not going to happen in the near future. With that in mind, we decided that we would spend a bit of money, and time, on things that would make this house work better for us, even though we know we will not be able to take the investment with us when we leave. #renterslife. 

The first thing on my radar is to turn our very unfinished basement into a useable play room/craft space for the kids. This will give us some room to grow and get all the big toys, and craft time mess, off the main level. Obviously, we are not going to put a ton of money into this because, like I said, it's not an investment that will give us a return, but I do want it to be finished enough that we will actually go down there to play. I'm thinking something like this from Lay Baby Lay.





Or this, from Justine Sterling Design



                         

If our basement comes out looking 50% as good as either of these spaces I will be a happy cat. 

Because, it's not good.





I've been purging and sorting, and purging and sorting. It seems to never end down there, but once that is done, we are going to:

1. Frame out the walls. 
2. Install some electrical outlets and ceiling fixtures. (There is only one outlet beside the electrical box, and three pull chain lights)
3. Put up drywall. 
4. Paint the ceiling.
5. Paint the floor, or install laminate. (We haven't decided yet)
6. Paint all the things. (I'm going to try and re-use as many furniture pieces as possible so it's all going to get a coat of paint in an attempt to look cohesive)
7. DIY-decorate our little hearts out, to keep it on the cheap, and of course, bring down the toys for the hooligans. 

I mean, it's a pretty short list...Easy peasy, bacon squeezey! 

Get on it Ry ;)