My brother flew out this morning.  He did very well for the time he was here.  What we had to do was extremely stressful for all involved and with only one small dust up I’m proud of them all.  I wore my High Priest’s emerald necklace to keep me in cool love for the duration and it helped immensely.  We have built up a momentum that I hope to keep going through the spring.

The basement rec room, small bedroom, and bath are officially going to be mine.  Before March is over.  O joy, rapturous, delicious heaven.  O space, oh pleasant, private space of my own away from the frantic edge of CNN, away from the 6am beeping of the microwave, into my own little retreat. O bliss.  O Gracious Goddess and Great God, grateful thanks for your genius, bounty, and timing. Next time it would be nice not to have change brought about by a house fire but I must admit the results are glorious to me.  Can you say incense?  I haven’t been able to burn incense for a year now.  Privacy to practice my circle building skills.  Privacy for ritual.  This witch, this artist, is just over the moon happy about all this.

4 days and 6 truck loads later and we are half way there.  We have 6 ancient trunks in poor repair, 2 dressers, 4 file cabinets, 2 bookshelves, 1 treadmill, 4 (!) oak desks, and other various and sundry items going up on Craigslist and Freecycle and my Facebook Wall in the next couple days.  I have to move what is left into the garage for the wall painting and carpet laying and new vanity install.  I have to contact the storage people and arrange a date to drop off the pods so we can move that into the garage and finished living area.  Then the Great Purge Part Deux will begin with my own things.  I’ve been here a year and what I must keep has surely changed.

My mother has given me a budget of $2000 to do what I will with the basement. Wow.  That is so very generous. I can do a LOT with that.  I probably won’t spend it all which will make her happy.  I will be going from 125 sq ft to 520 sq ft.  Increasing my space 400%.  Boggles the mind!  I will of course post before and after photos.

I have selected the paints for the rooms.  A creamy pale gold for the walls and an off white for the trim for the large main room, sleeping area, and craft room (yeah, did you read that? CRAFT ROOM!).  Right now it is a very dark and very dirty gold with chocolate wood stain.  So seriously depressing.  A pale sagey/avocadoey green for the very small bath.  A new white vanity/sink and medicine cabinet for the bath with brushed nickel fixtures.  O wonderous, amazing, hexadecimal color codes.

Main Room and Craft Room

Main room walls

Trim

Bath

Bath walls

Vanity / Medicine Cab

A golden tan low shag carpet for the large rooms, painted concrete for the bath.  It’s utilitarian and strictly functional, a compromise, and affordable as we are paying for the flooring and the painting of the closet doors as they are louvred and a painter’s nightmare if you don’t have a sprayer.  I can paint the rest of the trim.

I plan on using eggplanty shades for the decor in the bath like rugs and towels and painting something abstract or peaceful for the wall above the toilet.

Accent color in bath

I have the closet storage system selected.

I am starting work on the floor layout.  I have striped cream/gold/green floor length curtains from my last place that will be hung from the ceiling dividing the bed area from the living area.  The room is L-shaped and the bed goes in the smaller area.  I know I can get more of the fabric I used to make the curtains so will make a second set for the large window.  The layout is inspired by this:

There are large built-ins for my books plus a book shelf.  The smaller room will have the new tan carpet and the same walls as the large room.  A 9’x9′ room with a large closet and large windows for sewing and crafts.

I’m extremely stoked.  My poor parents though.  They had to take the slings and arrows of knowing that their lack of care has created this.  Everything is in transition, going through great change.  My father needs familiarity and he’s not getting it.  His office is moving from this large space to my room which must just disappoint him terribly.  But it’s good to do this now while he still has most of his faculties instead of later when he won’t.  It will be good to keep him all on the same level so the stairs don’t do him in.  It seems like a lot but it really is baby steps.  It never would have happened without the fire.  Who knew!

If we get what we want, dad home as long as possible, I could be here for quite some time.  This is not only going to make the house more sellable (we are doing the upstairs bathrooms and offices, a new back porch too but we aren’t going there quite yet), but we get to reap the rewards while we live here instead of doing all the work and not getting to enjoy it after.