I don’t know about you all, but I was scared to death of our basement as a kid. We lived in the country and had an old school basement, complete with the mildew-y smell and junk every where. We had extra food stored down there, so whenever my mom needed something, she would send me down to grab it. You can bet I was racing back up as fast as I could before the monsters grabbed my ankles!
We have been working our tails off for a year on finishing our basement ourselves so our kids don’t have to be freaked out by the basement any longer. One reason is we just want a space for all the bazillion toys we are accumulating, and also wanted the extra space for entertaining.
Our amazing neighbor is a contractor and has been helping my husband every step of the way. We aren’t fix-it kind of people, so it has been a HUGE learning process. I hope to reveal some of the lessons we learned in a future post, but until then, I wanted to share a fun Christmas surprise we gave our kids!
We have a large storage area and closet set-up in the basement, so we were going back and forth on what to do with the space under our stairs, when a fun idea came to mind: Let’s make into a reading nook. The only issue was that all the ideas we could find required quite of bit of construction — a.k.a. lots of $$$$.
My middle daughter, Karina, has sensory issues, and we’ve learned she loves small spaces and comfortable and soft things. With that in mind, instead of buying a bunch of toys we knew would get tossed in a few days, we decided to spend some of our Christmas budget on this space. Here’s what we purchased:
- Sheets from Salvation Army {I was able to nab them for 33% off during one of their daily sales on linens}
- Carpet squares from Habitat for Humanity ReStore – $3 each, in as many colors as we could find!
- Fun chairs, pillows, star light and disco ball from Five Below
- Bookcase, baskets and United States map rug from Walmart.com
- Lights from Christmas and Halloween clearance from Big Lots
- We had extra pillows and books
= Total was just around $100.
I used a staple gun and simply hung the sheets from the ceiling and stapled them.
This space may not be super Pinterest-friendly, but let’s be honest, it’s REAL. This is something anyone on any budget can make!
Based on their Christmas morning reaction, I think we have many years ahead of us to play in here. We’ve already used it as a classroom, lion cave and clubhouse. I can’t wait to see what my kids dream up next.
Have you transformed an under-utilized space in your home for your kids? I’d love to hear about it!
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