Basement Painting – Before and After

This basement was no picnic to paint. But I am SO glad it’s done! Here is the progression…

The first picture was taken when we were looking at the house. After we bought it, we had the tile removed by asbestos people because it tested positive and there were pieces starting to break apart or come up. Not exactly a place I’d like my kids to play!

BEFORE – Phase 1 (notice 15-month-old Eli playing with their tea seat! – he was so little… :)

BEFORE – Phase 2 (I didn’t bother to clean up since before pictures should always look as bad as possible). We had carpet installed and dumped a lot of junk downstairs. Most of the toys were given to us by friends or neighbors, which we are really grateful for! I especially love having an indoor slide when it’s too cold to play outside.

BEFORE – Phase 2 (it was just SO BEIGE and dark – I was not looking forward to another winter with lots of time spent in a dark basement)

SO…. I present to you – the basement today where a week later, Eli still walks downstairs and proclaims, “It’s SO blue!” in his happy voice. He loves it and so do I.

I based the blue and green colors on this growth chart hanging on the wall. I used existing nails for hanging things, which is why stuff is a little off kilter. There is still more work to do in decorating the basement, but this is good for now. We also turned the shelving unit over on its side so it would be more accessible for kids.

Remember Eli’s C is for Cookie birthday party? We kept the Cookie Monster sign and he still thinks it’s one of the coolest things. I painted the middle column the bright green, as well as the built-in bookshelves.

My craft cave is behind the door on the left. Someday I'll get that space in order and show you the before and afters… but the current “before” phase is SO bad. It’s a very neglected space that could be much, much better. Someday! This basement painting job was such a pain because of the many beams, nooks, corners, doors, etc. PHEW!

I’m not crazy about the Thomas, Spiderman, and other character junk. But Eli would be devastated if I ever painted over the Thomas bench or got rid of any of those things.

And in other news… I officially declare that Eli has hit the terrible twos. He is still my sweet, wonderful child for most of each day. But he says “NOOOOOOOO!” way too many times to count. Often that is followed with “Charlie!” (translation - “NOOOOOOOO Charlie!!”). Charlie is such a good sport, despite his obstinate big brother who constantly tries to push Charlie out of the way or yells in his face. Tonight Eli was throwing fits all over the place, not wanting to eat dinner, brushing his teeth or putting pjs on, etc. It was exhausting and he was screaming SO loud. I'm positive he fell asleep about two minutes after we closed the bedroom door.

Charlie is making great strides in his mobility. He’s a great crawler, but he is so determined to walk. I can’t put Charlie down on the floor to play for very long before he’ll crawl over to me, grab my hands and expect me to walk with him. Today he started pulling himself up to something and then letting go. Crazy! I've decided that while Eli is such a believer in personal space and keeping people out of his, Charlie is the exact opposite. He loves to get up in your face, touch you, love you, and gets excited when he sees other people, especially little kids.