The Basement Renovation Shuffle

Home projects are exciting and aggravating all at the same time. The excitement is in the transformation and watching the ideas you have blossom into reality. The aggravation is the displacement of most everything in your home. We are in the midst of remodeling our basement. When we bought our home it already had a small kitchen in the basement. We knew one day we would have to remodel it and the day arrived about 8 weeks ago.It’s hard to explain, but literally everything is everywhere! I have piles with piles on them that are stuffed in rooms and closets. I have a hot mess of drywall dust and paint samples and best of all a pair of my favorite shoes has dried drywall mud stuck to the soles. 

It’s a slow moving project. We hired my brother-in law to do the major things like electrical and wall building, and putting in cabinets and then my husband Mark and I fill in where we can. There is still lots to do. We still need to finish putting in the cabinets and flooring has to be put down and before the flooring we should probably get all the painting done. My brother-in-law is a busy guy. He is working several jobs at the same time, so we see him about once a week. It’s not ideal, but when he is here he works his fanny off!

I am a “a place for everything and everything in its place” kind of gal and right now everything is everyplace and its driving me nuts. I have to keep reminding myself that this is temporary. Whats happening is a good thing and we are fortunate to be able to do this, however is my sanity really worth it. I mean drywall mud is STUCK to the bottom of my shoes...GAH! We have a target date of mid November at the latest. That is when my family in Connecticut is coming for Thanksgiving so the pressure mounts each day as we creep closer and closer to that day.

I won’t lie, I am pretty mean to myself about the stuff everywhere. I keep worrying that I’m turning into a messy person. What if I become sloppy? It could happen...right? It’s a scary thought. I have all of my pantry items in one of the bedrooms and I have a drying rack for my laundry in another room. I walk into a room and immediately forget why I am in there and then turn around and walk out. Then I spend several minutes aggravated with myself for losing my marbles and walk back and forth until my memory decides to share what it was I was up to when I headed for said room. That’s called “The Basement Renovation Shuffle”. I don’t recommend learning the dance its quite draining!

My husband, Mark, recommended I get back to writing so that I can dump some of my stresses out for others to see. Perhaps someone can learn and grow from reading about my woes. If nothing else I will have a nice log of my life to reflect on when I’m finally sitting in my tidy finished basement. At least a girl can dream.