Our basement is coming along, to the point where if you saw these pictures, you might actually think it’s finished, or close to it. I thought so, but then I started to make a list of all the things we still need to do down there, and it got really, really, really long, so I stopped and went and had a box of cookies to calm me down.

But at least there is progress!

Here’s the little nook at the bottom of the stairs, hopefully one day to be full of bookcases:

The stairs and hallway:

The built-in nook in the hallway, with IKEA shelves installed:

Sharp eyed viewers will notice, in that last picture, that there are identical IKEA shelves in the background, in the main room. Here’s why: when we got all the flooring done and in, and then went to slide in our lovely IKEA Expedit shelves, they DID NOT FIT. They were too tall and too wide by like, a quarter of an inch, and we possibly could have wailed on them and pounded them in there, but it definitely would have damaged the wall, wall that we had just spent hours and hours repairing and painting.

But it had a happy ending in that IKEA has discontinued the Expedit shelves because they have introduced a replacement, the Kallax system. Kallax looks almost EXACTLY like Expedit except it happens to be about a half inch smaller all around. I’d call that unbelievably lucky, like to the point of complete improbability, but whatever – WE’LL TAKE IT.

So we went out and got some Kallax shelves and slid them easily into place (a little too easily, now there is a bit of a gap but WE’LL TAKE IT, DAMMIT). And thus, we have a nice set of Expedit shelves leftover. Not sure what we’ll be doing with those at the moment but there you have it.

Here’s a couple shots of the main, big area:

Looks pretty good, no? Sir Monkeypants has been working hard. But as pretty as it is right now, there’s still lots to do, including:

• painting – the window wells, window trim, and doors to the work room and storage room still need to be painted; the baseboards need to be repaired and touched up where they were nailed in.
• cabling – need to run wires for the TV and Internet and phone
• storage – we need to buy, assemble, and install several bookshelves, wardrobes for toy storage, and a TV/entertainment unit, at a bare minimum
• curtains – need to cover the windows with something
• work room – needs to be cleaned out and organized
• storage room – needs to be emptied, shelves built, then stuff put back in there

We’ve been stalled for a couple of weeks now, trying to figure out our next step, but I think we have made a decision – we’ll try to get the storage room done next, so we can get everything that goes in there put away properly. Here’s what it looks like now, and I think you’ll agree it should be a bit of a priority, considering I almost kill myself every time I go in there to find sports equipment/camping gear/gift boxes/extra kitchen appliances, and Christmas IS coming, and Lord only knows where the decorations are hiding.

This means that all the lovely empty, clean space of the finished area is about to get full of every box and crate and leftover bit of furniture we own, and it’ll stay heaped like that until we can get shelves built into the storage room.

But they say it has to get worse before it can get better, right? SIGH.