Basement Facelift, Part II

Anyone who knows me well knows I get a little carried away with an idea from time to time. My current focus is the basement. It has blossomed into something much more interesting than just installing track lighting, which will be installed in a couple of weeks.

I realized one of the things that made it look most like a basement was the floor-to-ceiling shelving on two walls. I came up with the idea of hiding those shelves with roller shades like you might install on a window. We went over to Next-Day Blinds to check out the possibilities and the cost. Although they had never done exactly what we were asking for, the woman we spoke to thought it was a great idea (so great she was contemplating doing the same thing to her basement) and came up with an inexpensive shade that seems just perfect. That’s it -- Marguerite -- above. Fortunately we don’t need any blackout capability since there is no external light in the basement.

From there I moved on to Cyndy’s suggestion of painting the cinder block walls an off-white to match the shades. I contacted Luis, the guy who painted our entire house last year, and sent him pictures so he can give me an estimate.

Another distinguishing feature of the basement is the unpainted wood beams and heating/cooling ducts in the ceiling. My idea to camouflage these was to hang beautifully tie-dyed sheets from the ceiling in a draped way that they cover up the unwanted and provide something interesting to look at. I contacted a neighbor who is world-renowned in the field of fabric arts. She gave me a quick lesson in tie-dying and told me how to fasten the sheets to the wooden beams. She is way too sophisticated for a job like this, so I sent an email to her artistic daughter to see if she would like to collaborate in creating a faux-ceiling in the basement.

And just to entice my husband down to the basement to exercise with me, I suggested we get a TV, which will allow us to watch and listen to just about anything. I have become a fan of entertainment to pass the minutes of sweating.

It’s probably a good thing that I’m taking a break from thinking about the basement to go see my son in San Francisco tomorrow. While there I will go to the Gertrude Stein exhibit and see a friend who goes back many years in my life.

I’m sure the basement will be just the way I left it when I come home on Friday afternoon. It’s fun to carry an idea to an extreme sometimes.