The Joy of Stepping on Legos

Good heavens, it’s been awhile.

If you are wondering how the basement project is going, it isn’t.

The floors are still half concrete/half this amazing vinyl tile that is equal parts ugly to  asbestos (if I were a betting person, which I’m not really an all in kind of betting person, I’m more of a ranking of percentage confident kind of person. I once fought Brett hard that his best friend’s house had a pocket door for the main floor bathroom. A house I had been into once and a house Brett basically grew up in. I gave it a 95% confidence rating. Brett wanted to put him self as a 100% confident, but of course I told him you can’t be 100%. Turns out there wasn’t a pocket door. This is likely Brett’s greatest win of all time. I’m fairly sure the words “I was wrong” may have even slipped from my mouth. Now I don’t want you to get the wrong impression I am nearly always right especially when I give a high confidence rating).

There are a few bright sides to having the basement ripped up.

1. We found some sewer thing that is smack dab in the middle of the basement. I mean you have to take your wins were you can. Just think if sewage were to back up in the future, now we know where the thing is, what a perk!
2. My brothers were noting the weird placement of that and that our water shut off is also in the middle of the house. They think there was likely additions at some time. Now maybe this isn’t exactly a bright side, but I love the mystery of wondering what it used to be and how the house was originally laid out. It kinda made the whole two sets of stairs make sense. I may have to figure out how to find old plans or permits from the city to satisfy my curiosity.
3. Now this is a bit of a stretch, but I am going to go with it. We let the kids scooter and bike inside ever since we ripped up the carpet. And then just a week ago we had a learn-how-to-bike-without-training-wheels-party with two of Levi’s friends and he totally did it. I’m sure it was all the confidence he built up and extra weeks of being on wheeled things in the basement that really made it a success! More likely it was the perfect kind of peer pressure. Ever since I’ve been dreaming up all kinds other kinds of parties, How-to-clean-up-after-yourself-party, eating-vegetables-is-fun-party, just-face-it-your-mom-is-always-right-party…

In the interim I bought a carpet remnant from Lowes and we put a few things back down in the basement. Trust me when I say having all the legos in the the kitchen is a max two week kind of solution. Apparently having wall to wall couches and a bed right inside your front door is a many months solution. I mean who am I kidding we had a toilet in our main living room just inside the front door for 9 short months when we renovated out master bath. We had friends over for a movie night and had to laugh when we said everyone come upstairs to our room and pick out a movie. Its this weird limbo of hopefully we can actually get things moving and fix the water issues, but also knowing nothings been happening yet. We don’t want to have to bring everything back up out of the basement again. So for now it looks like this except picture a million legos on the floor to surprise and delight your every step. Also picture clutter absolutely everywhere. Now I don’t know about you, but I can’t keep ugly clean or organized.

Brett and I have been talking about taking out that half wall between the office and playroom and a whole slew of other ideas. If you thought we were slow moving on projects we are excited about, you should just how slow we move on things we don’t feel like doing.

I forgot almost forgot perk #4

The kids absolutely love playing in what they affectionately refer to as the Crack. None of their friends have one. What is it you ask? The great fun of climbing on top of the queen mattress and box spring and then sliding down between them. They are held mostly in place by a couch. I’m pretty sure it was outlawed for a week or two, but who are we kidding, we can’t keep up that kind of vigilance. I mean they are only 5 feet off the ground with the potential of hitting at least one soft surface if they fall. When Levi was a baby people used to say we seemed pretty calm and cool for first time parents. Turns out if you start there, after you have a second kid you just slip right into negligence, and let me tell you the kids love it!

In other news we have been doing exciting things outside! The wisteria is just about to bloom and we spread some grass seed last night, so hopefully in a week or two I’ll show you where we are at in the backyard! Here is a peek into the progress we made in early May.

Until next time….