an ode to our basement

O Basement, Basement, wherefore art thou creepy? Lose thy dankness and shed thy smell;

Or if thou wilt not… my husband will come at you with a sledge hammer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This weekend started like any other weekend. Saturday morning, the first time in 5 days that we don’t have to get up at 5:50, DanO is usually bright eyed and bushy tailed at 6:15 a.m. .

(Grammar help needed: What is proper when ending a sentence with an abbreviation? Just put two periods next to each other? I think that looks weird.)

And what does one do when they can’t sleep at 6 a.m. on a Saturday? Why, one installs refrigerant grade line sets for an AC unit, of course! Subsequently, one checks online to find out what time Menards (local hardware store) opens, is pleased to discover that it opens at 6:30 a.m. for men such as one’s self, and then one scurries on over there for some elbow joints and… and… whatever else one needs.

(I can only pretend to know what I’m talking about for so long. It’s tiring, you know.)

Around 8 a.m. the watermelon on my abdomen and I decide it’s a good time to start our day. This involves moving myself from a laying position on my bed to a reclined position on my couch.

DanO continues to travel from the basement to the outside AC unit and back. I use a great amount of energy to rise from my couch and pour myself a bowl of cereal. DanO hollers and asks me if I could please bring him his drill/screwdriver/flashlight/breathing mask/pipe wrench. I bring him the item and ask him if he’ll stop and eat some cereal. He says “soon“. I optimistically pour him a bowl of cereal and wait for him to join me.

DanO asks for another tool. I say “Cereal first”. He complies.

Now, on this particular morning, DanO went over to his parents’ house after breakfast and worked with his dad and brother on their basement which they are currently finishing. My theory is that this got under DanO’s skin. Inspired him. Gave him a vision. Made him jealous of all that clean, finished basement space his parents have, because by 9pm Saturday night, my basement looked like this:

What? Don’t act like you’re not impressed.

What you see here is the shattered remains of a very old laundry basin sink made of concrete which used to be resting (not secured at all, turns out) on those very rusted spindly metal legs seen in the top half of that glamorous picture. I’m just not comfortable with the thought of scrubbing onesies and cloth diapers over that hazardous thing, so it had to go. A lot of other things had to go too, like the flooring. And the walls. And some of the pipes. And parts of the stairs. And the dryer vent.

Our plans are big: Wall out the cinder block so that it feels like livable space, put in new flooring (sans carcinogens), build in cabinets and a counter top, give the bathroom down there an actual door (as if there’s something wrong with a slatted bi-fold door for a ba√±o…), and let there be light.

There’s something beautiful under all that asbestos, I’m convinced of it.

In the meantime, DanO is having a grand old time busting it all to pieces.

Will you please look at that smile?

Some things never change.