As I sat there in my cold basment, knitting a tremendously long scarf and watching all the four hours of Lord of the Rings special features, I was trying to think of a blog that I should post. I thought of telling you about my Christmas, plans for the New Year, then it came upon me with the brilliant idea of writing about my basement. Where to begin?
I don't rememeber the earliest stages of my basement, seeing as I wasn't born, but I got to hear stories from my parents and my older sister. You see, my house has become a project for my parents. It's never completely finished, and there's alwaysy something to fix or refurnish or paint. They started when they moved in about 20 years ago, and we just put in new floors yesterday. Anywho.
As far as my earliest memories go, I know that the stairs leading down to my basment were actually curved to the left, but now it's changed to the normal 'straight down the stairs'. It's more convienient in a lot of ways. Now there is a lesser chance of me falling down the stairs, and when we want to throw laundry down the stairs, it can go right down into the basement instead of congesting the stairwell. As we would move down the stairs, I don't believe we had flooring. I believe we had cement. Cold, hard, grey cement. As child proof as you would imagine it would be, it was actually fun. My sister and I could rollerblade in the basement, and not have to worry about ruining flooring. Then there was the swing. Yes, we had a swing in our house. It was a yellow 'banana' swing that was placed in front of the TV so we could sit on whilst watching TV. As we began to move down the hallway, there was 'the wall'. You see, in the midst of my parents constant renovation, there wouldl be points when they would be getting ready to to take down ugly old 70's wall paper, to repaint and refresh the room. Well somewhere in the kafluffle of everything, we had this rather large wall that my sisters and I could draw on. Soon after it was covered up, and our games of 'x's and o's, hang man, drawing flowers and people and palm trees were all gone. That wall is now just a faint memory beneath a coat of beige paint. Last but not least, I rememeber my mother having this room. It was secluded from the rest of the house and it was dark and scary- 'the Sewing Room'. I don't even rememeber going in, and if I did, my memories had been painted with shade of blue and black. That was my least favorite.
A few years later, there was the reconstruction of rooms. The 'Sewing Room' was taken down and moved into a large hallway containg two rooms. In the midst of that, my father had to take down my pole. You know, the kind of pull that was in houses for structural reasons. Well, that was my first boyfriend. Yes Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm putting it out there. I was in love with a pole. (mind you I was about 4), though my age doesn't really do that little tale justice.
When I was about 9, I decided I wanted to move my bedroom downstairs. I had decided to paint my room a wonderful vibrant yellow colour, and it's theme would be '70's', and to this day, I still have the yellow walls, and the tye-dye comforter follwed by an old record playing cabinet that was painted bright blue with purple and pink and green circles. (During this time, my father took down the pole and was about to throw it away). I told him "NO!", and I made him to bury it in my walls. So in the back of one of my built in closests lies my first love.
So there I was, a 9 yearold living in a room that used to frighten me. At thet time, I was the only one in the basement, and it took me a few months to adjust to sleeping down there. The bed was perfectly comfortable and I had a rather large collection of my stuffies up on the bed with me, and yet there seemed to be a noise from a collaborative place in my house. I rememeber one night, I woke up in a fright from hearing a gurgling noise coming from outside my room followed by a spring noise. At that moment, I knew someone was on the computer, in MY BASEMENT, playing candy minigolf. I just knew I had heard those sounds before. I burst out of my room, not even bothering to look in the computer room, into my parents room. The next morning, I found out that it was actually the furnace that was mkaing the gurgling noise, and my older sister rolling over on a broken spring on her bed. For the next few years, I would hear those faint noises in the night.
I rememeber having an ugly bathroom. It was a tiny little hole in the basment that no one would ever bother going to. When I moved down there, my parents knew what to do. They would renovate. So I now still have 'a little hole in the basment' of a bathroom, but it looks nice.
My computer room was also just a hole in the basement. It had a very tiny window, and it was partly storage. It was painted an ugly green colour, but that seemed to be the least of our problems. That room was a place of refuge. If I were ever home alone with either of my sisters, that would be the place you'd find us. As we put it, the only little window would just show the feet of people arriving at our door, and so if foreign feet were to show up, we would be ready.
Now the basment has been completely rearranged. The computer room is new the sewing room. The old sewing room is now my sisters room, the main room/tv room is now defined the more 'nicer place' and a place my mom could have people over and drink wine, as we had moved our 'nicer' furniture that kind of looks like picasso's work on a couch. Even though the basement seemed about perfect, we just added recently added a new book case 'that simply just adds to the look of the room' and a new surround sound feature that really does impress my father, though not so much my mother.
Might I just add- The Lord of the Rings is brilliant on surround sound. Just saying.
Happy Blogger
Episode 2 - A Bucket of Beeps
11 years ago