If You Give A Girl A Basement

This morning as I was talking to Vince about something else I needed in the basement, I reminded myself of the book, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie.

The basement is where I love hanging out. Some of the reasons are just plain selfish. First, if I’m out of sight, Vince doesn’t think of a million things I need to do – i.e., make an eggplant salad, sew the hole in my shorts pocket, come outside and help me decide where to plant the lilacs, etc. He’s way less likely to come downstairs to ask me to do something. I know I do the same thing to him. Just this morning I asked him if he would re-do my vacuum “chamber” for vacuum sealing jars. His response: When my shop is “done”. I think that means when the inside is totally the way he wants it and organized.

The basement is so perfect because it’s so much cooler than upstairs. We always said we wouldn’t buy a house with one air conditioner unit. Our preference is one for the basement and one for the main level or, in the least, a zoned system. This house has neither – just one unit so when the upstairs is set at 72, it’s about 65 in the basement with half the vents closed off. With the thermostat set to 76, and half the downstairs vents closed, that’s comfortable. There are three vents in the sewing room and I keep them all closed. We make it work but it’s so much cooler in the basement. I have two probably 30 x 30 windows and two probably 30 x 50 windows, plus a double French Door in the sewing room so there’s plenty of light plus 10 ceiling lights. They’re the can type lights and Vince changed them all the LED lights. Perfect place to sit and stitch, knit or sew.

So, even though we said we’d never buy a house with one unit, we did because all the other good outweighed that and (1) the solar panels cover the cost of the electricity except for January and February and (2) I don’t think it would be terribly expensive (or maybe I should say impossible) to either changed this to a zoned system or a two unit system. The entire basement has a drop ceiling. The a/c unit is ony three years but when we do change it, we’ll see what it would involve to change to a zoned system. Even if we can’t, I still love this house.

I have a reclining love seat in the sewing room (that I had bought for the apartment in Nevada, MO), but I wanted a chair, which is more comfortable to me for stitching so I got the chair I wanted.

Then I needed a better lamp and I love the one I got. This is the light I got last and I do love it – especially with the swivel recliner because I can get in the position I want in the recliner, swivel a bit, pull the lamp right where I want it, which puts the base under the front of the recliner, then when I’m ready get up, I swivel out of the way to clear the base of the lamp and get up.

Then I needed a little three tray stand beside my chair for scissors, drink, phone, cup for threads, etc. so I found one at JoAnn’s.

Then I needed a little table on the other side for my the tablet if I’m stitching a pdf or for the magnetic stand if I’m stitching a paper chart.

Then I needed another Chromebook because if I was upstairs, my Chromebook was downstairs. Vince had an older one he wasn’t using so he gave it to me to bring downstairs.

This morning as I was getting my drink to bring downstairs, I told Vince . . what I really need is a fridge downstairs. He gave me “the look” but since our old fridge is still working, and hopefully will be when the new one gets here, I think we should bring the fridge downstairs and put it in the exercise room. It’s air conditioned and heated, the water heater and water softener are in a closet in that room so it shouldn’t be too hard to run a line to the ice maker. I haven’t mentioned that plan yet . . just that I need a fridge downstairs.

We had basements in our house in Kentucky and in Nevada, MO but Chad’s room was downstairs and even though my sewing room was in an extra bedroom in Kentucky and in the downstairs family room in MO, Chad always considered the basement HIS domain so it’s nice to have my own little private area in the basement. I love having a basement.

The best part about being in the basement – Boots! He’ll come upstairs but he’s much more comfortable in the sewing room. It’s rare for him to bite me when we’re in the sewing room.