Back At It Basement Style.

Seriously, it seems like I will never ever get the basement in bearable form.  It's like...the Never Ending Project.  Ah well, and so it is.

Its naggy-ness to me is likely extra heightened by the fact that I spend way more time down there than I used to.  All thanks to workbench.  Ahhhhh yes, yay workbench!  How I love thee so!  Can you hear me fluttering my eyes and sighing in sweet sweet love?

I'm standing at said workbench one day, look up at all my tools aligned there and thought to myself:   I am tired of the wall color.  It was always to be temporary anyway, just to rid the room of as much horrible bad flipper color as possible, without shuffling too much junk around.

So I thought.  And thought.  And waited and waited.  I'd been checking the mis-mix paint section at three different Menards stores (how's that for dedication) hoping something would turn up.

And finally my luck turned.  There was a big five gallon bucket of this blue-y green-y shade that actually was kinda pretty-ish.  And for fifteen bucks, I could not pass it up.  Yup, $125 bucket of paint for $15.  Yes.  Like I mentioned before, Menards has the best deals on mis-mixes.

Now I know five gallons is way more than I need, but I'm hoping maybe I can mix it into other colors for other painting tasks.  Maybe for the hall bedroom?  It looks poopy in there as-is actually, thanks to the piss poor light, lack thereof, generally, overall.

Anyway, so basement problem solved.  Or paint problem solved I should say.

But not the paint problem by my workbench.

I felt that itch.

Black, said my screwball brain.

I know!  I can't help myself.  I can hardly control my urge to paint everything black.  So I did it.  (click that link, you gotta) I started and then I got all nervous.  

Mike.  Uh oh.  Mike is not the black paint fan that I am.  He fore acquiesced me my one room allotment...Oh boy, what am I gonna do?

Ok think.  Think think think.  Got it!, as I'm halfway done painting the wall.  Turn it into a chalkboard wall and it's totally justified!  Chalkboard....workbench.....definitely go together.  Bingo!!

Sure, there's not a whole lot of writing space but who cares!  Write small!  Black!  Chalkboard!  Justified!  Yay!

Since of course I'm painting this wall at oh, 7 pm, it's not likely I'll run out for supplies to finish.... Uh oh.  Mike will see it before it's done.

"Whoa.  What the hell....?  grumble mutter grumble..." is all I heard when he went down there.  Granted, it was an utter mess so maybe that's what he was reacting to (or what I'm telling myself he reacted to).

Yikes!  Mess!!

Upon resurfacing, I told him my plan and he was shockingly all nonchalant chill about it.  "Mmk.  Don't care what you paint the basement."  Shrug.

Whhhuuuuuttt??  Who are you?!  Huh.  Ok!

Soooo....sweet!  Black chalkboard wall it is, whew.  Yay!!

There are gazillions of super simple DIY chalkboard paint recipes out there on the interwebs; I went with about one-ish tablespoon of unsanded grout per one cup-ish of flat black paint.

I didn't measure the paint, I eyeballed.  Seemed to work well.

Do note it makes the paint gloopy, thick, and weird to roll.  And do note too, stir extra extra well then stir extra well again or you'll get grout splotches.  Plus work quick because the paint thickens up fast. Heh, but have no fear!  : )

Grout splotches there in the center-ish.

I did buy some sticks of chalk recently though I haven't tested the out wall.  Heh.  Black.  Yesss.....

Finny approved!

The longest piece of chair rail has been eliminated, destroyed, already stolen out of the alley where it rightfully belonged.

I finally figured out what the dealio was with all the holes in the drywall behind all that damn trim downstairs.  It was their method of locating the wall studs to nail the trim into.  Seriously.  No sh*t.  I kid you not.

Three...two...one, hey stud!

Freakin' palm to forehead.

Look close center then to the right...like 7 or 8 holes.

"Dude, just drill a hole in the wall, move a little further, ok try again, keep going, keep going...oh!  There's one!"  Who the hell does that?!?!

Oy, I'm still flabbergasted.  So many holes in the walls.  Everywhere.

But I got the majority of the basement bathroom painted...

Yes, yes I know, still work to be done.  Too many spiders though.

...and nearly all the rest of the basement.  All that's left is one corner and bam, every single yucky flipper color will finally be gone!  Finally.  Two years later but hey, finally!  Rock on, man.

Basement before, pre-purchase.

Because I was on a (albeit slow) roll with clearing off more shelf space then I ended up rifling through Hailey's box of belongings not on purpose and then I clean and organize when I'm upset and no I can't explain that reaction,...but, I was able to eliminate one more shelf unit as a result.  So we're at three in the main basement area, down from five.

Yay!  And paint, yay!!

Then because I'm working on this pet project, I got rattled again and ended up rearranging the entire under-stair closet.

Sorry, no "before"'s but trust me, I could barely get in.

A two hour endeavor, but I felt a little better.

Still not ideal but it's headway.  Look, there's even space on a shelf!  Someday Mike would like wine storage in here.  At least we have temporary wine racks in the mean time though.

This, the closet where they hung the door backwards to fold in because the HVAC duct in the room, couldn't fold out.  Eyeroll.

So the basement, yeah, it's feeling improved.  It feels a bit lighter now in the sense of less weight of stuff, but it also feels lighter because of the color.  And once I start buying lottery tickets and have the winning one, I was thinking of peel and stick wood-look vinyl tile for the floor.

That preposterous floor -- have I ever mentioned?  It's so not even remotely level...it dips, bows, ebbs, flows.  Occasionally I'll drop something and it sounds hollow beneath the tile.  In several places.  Ahem, scary.  I'd love to pour self-leveling concrete over the whole thing but yeah, that...likely won't happen.

Anyway, back to the paint...it may not be the perfect color, a potential downside of mix-mixed paint but it's good enough and that's all that matters to me, dammit.

Yay, go basement go basement!

Stay tuned, it's deck week!