The next thing

We always have a few projects in the back of our minds, vying for center stage. I think the next one up is revamping the finished part of our basement. It's been largely the same since we painted the fireplace wall purple and installed our pantry storage, way back in 2014. To everyone's surprise, the kids still play on that dome, and I still run on that treadmill. We rearrange the positioning of the treadmill to account for the fact that if I watch TV at all when I'm running, it's just on my tiny phone screen.

In 2015, we got rid of our tools from the basement and moved them in the garage and that wall has pretty much stayed full of just random large-format gymnastics-type toys.

We recently got rid of a large-ish indoor trampoline and that invited the question: what next?

We have a few goals for what we want the room to be. First, we plan to move the TV from over the fireplace to either the wall with the bullseye on it (D's choice) or the one with the backdrop and heating baseboard on it (my choice). We'll be moving the Switch down here so there's more room to have full family competitions of Just Dance (yes, we're THAT family).

We're owning the fact that this room is primarily used for fitness and physical play and D is designing stall bars/a Swedish ladder for the wall between the stairs and the basement closet.

I'm sure we'll have a whole post about it when we design our own and start building, but here's what we're generally going for:

The biggest thing we need to deal with (besides some decorating choices like wall paint, etc) is what to do about the floor. We appreciate the carpet because it is soft and padded, and between the kids constantly tumbling and playing "floor is lava" and my workouts, it's nice to have some cushion. But that carpet has been around since before we owned our house and has seen some things. It was already a little stained when we moved in, and unfortunately the cats have also made it their own. We had some unfortunate pee issues a few times (always treated with enzyme cleaner and we don't smell it anymore, but still, ew...) and we OFTEN have puke issues. How often? Often enough for D to 3D-print a sign a few months ago for us to keep track:

So far, our record is 12 days. It's usually under 5. This carpet is our cats' preferred place to hack up a hairball, and cleaning requires a multi-step process that still occasionally leaves a stain behind.

We want cushioned but also cleanable. We're still in the research phase and planning to order some samples of a few things. Here are some options we're considering, that all essentially fall into the category of rubber gym flooring:

1) gym tiles: pros - very cushioned, available in some not-totally-ugly colors, cat-claw-proof; cons - beveled edges would probably drive us crazy and potentially be hard to clean

2) high-density foam: pros - very cushioned; cons - ugly, possibly not strong enough for cat claws, possibly hard to clean

3) rubber gym flooring: pros - sturdy and easy to clean, some are available in not-totally-ugly colors, cat-claw-proof; cons - surprisingly dense and not cushiony

4) plyometric rubber: pros - claims to be very cushiony; cons - possibly hard to clean, only available in black

5) some combination that involves using a cushioned rubber underlayment under something less ugly, possibly luxury vinyl

Looks aren't a priority for us in the basement, though obviously we don't want to hate it. Hopefully we'll have some more clarity when the samples arrive. But in the meantime, if you have experience with any of these or have other suggestions, let us know your thoughts!

Looking shady

We had an opportunity in spring 2025 to get some free plants preselected for a shade garden. And we had plenty of shade now on the side of our addition. We jumped at the chance and started preparing the plot, using old railroad ties to map out the space. We removed the grass and filled it with compost and mulch.

Here's where the space is in our yard, for context:

The plants arrived in April, which apparently was the "right" time to get them in the ground, so we got to work right away:

We received a bunch of tiny plugs, each well labeled. 

The plants we received (from left to right) were: blue wood sedge, golden ragwort, alumroot, wild geranium, goat's beard, blue-stemmed goldenrod, and cardinal flower.

It even came with a planner that suggested exactly how to lay out the garden based on a few common shapes (rectangle border, circle, etc.), so planting was surprisingly simple. Our trapezoid most closely resembled this long rectangle, so that's what we used as our guide:

They looked so tiny!

Here is the garden again that June, three months later, with everything a little bigger:

By August, the time of year when we usually kill all our plants due to our inability to water them, the garden was still looking happy and healthy. We even had some cardinal flowers!

And then last fall, they still were holding on well into November:

Let's fast forward to 2026. Here is early June, with the golden ragwort in bloom:

And now it's July and we're headed back to cardinal flowers! Here's to keeping our garden alive!

Ode to Cloud Dancer

I thought it was a joke when Pantone named "Cloud Dancer" the color of the year for 2026. White? Really? And I still think it's one of their weaker choices for lots of reasons. However, we recently embarked on two relatively quick touch-up projects that both required white paint (neither of them actually Cloud Dancer) so I guess maybe this really is white's year to shine for us.

Our first project was tackling the upstairs hallway. We painted it back in 2010 by ourselves and really struggled with how to paint the section that extends over the stairs using rollers on wands. Because we couldn't get up close to edge the line where the ceiling met the wall, we just painted everything a single color/finish. Did I record what that color/finish was? No, I did not. However, while I don't remember the exact finish (it was probably matte or satin), I do remember the color. Because there was none. Those were the days when we thought "white" meant "untinted" and so the white was VERY bright. The colors in the cans are not meant to be used as-is. And so that was how it remained for, well, 15 years.

Being the hallway, the walls and doorframes took a lot of abuse, plus we had to screw gates into the walls in order to babyproof--hardware that we left up even though the gates had long since been removed. Some of the paint had peeled off when we removed the paint sample stickers we had put there for one of the kid bedrooms (the light being more even than it was in the green room). Plus a new smoke detector and new doorknobs meant that we had to paint to new lines. Even if I had been happy with the original white walls, it was time for a refresh:

(Note that photographing these and getting the white-balance correct due to the light and shadows was next to impossible, so squint really hard and pretend that all of these pictures show the exact same color paint, because they should.)

This time, we hired professionals. It was a quick job for them to patch up the holes from the screws in the walls, caulk around that light fixture on the ceiling that always looked like it was not quite attached, and actually paint things in different finishes. This time, of course, we tinted the paints. We went with Benjamin Moore's Simply White in eggshell for the walls and semi-gloss for the trim and doors, plus standard ceiling paint. Simply White was what we had used in the formerly green nursery and we liked the way it had come out.

Obviously the pro team had fancy ladder and things to help them get to all the corners we couldn't. And much better tarping!

Here's the newly refinished corner where we had previously had screw-holes from our baby gate. Also gone were all the scuffs and scratches.

The ceiling light, freshly caulked. It's hard to tell but the white of the ceiling is indeed a slightly different color from the walls, which is how it's normally supposed to work.

And the hallway itself, with glossy, bright white doors and trim and our new doorknob hardware to match (almost) the rest of the house.

It was a subtle change that probably only I cared about, but it brought me joy (or at least reduced my annoyance) and was well worth the price and brief inconvenience.

That was project one. Then a few months later, we tackled another white space that was past due for an upgrade. The downstairs hallway!

We'd already done one sort-of upgrade, also in 2010, replacing the rug once and adding some wall hanging. First we'd done a clothesline of pictures and then we eventually put up framed art. But we never touched the walls, and so they were the original white we moved in to. Because it was painted over knotty pine, we could see knots that came through the paint, and had never even switched out the sad painted-white-to-match switch plates:

I had already removed the pictures from the walls and the sad switch plate on this side, but you can see the carpet (new in 2010) that was also due for an upgrade:

And here:

Nothing really wrong with it except our lives did not mesh well with such a light colored rug, plus the rug was looped and the cats were rough on it. What absolutely prompted the need for this project was this (also visible in the first hallway picture above, if you knew what to look for):

Can you see it? This time, the white balance isn't playing tricks on you. The doors were a completely different color than the walls. The door upgrade we made in 2024 while the addition was being built meant that the doors and the doorframes were the new, glossy white of our primary suite, while the walls were who-knows-what. It drove me crazy for almost 18 months. If this picture doesn't make it obvious, take a look at the next one (fast-forwarded to painting in-progress):

There was something else too. We had to upgrade our Nest thermostat due to the old one no longer being supported. And of course it wasn't the same footprint (wallprint?) and left us with an unpainted panel and a hole:

Some woodworking was required. D drilled out the hole to make it more even:

Then wedged in a wood circle that matched the dimensions.

There was other woodworking to be done. We had inherited a house that evidently used to have a basement door, which the previous owners had removed (which makes total sense--there's nowhere for that door to swing). But the hardware was still evidence on the trim:

D used his CNC machine to machine-cut out a plate to cover the strike plate:

The other side of the former door had carve-outs too:

 

Woodworking done, then it became my turn. The corners and wall edges, plus a few random panel edges needed caulking, plus of course I had to spackle the new wood inserts to blend them into the wall.

And then it was time to paint. Did we use the same color we had for the upstairs hallway? Of course not! That would have been too easy. The doors and trim had already been painted Benjamin Moore's Chantilly Lace, the white we had chosen for the addition, so we were committed. As I noted in previous posts, it turned out to be a tad too white for our taste, but we were not about to repaint all the doors in the hallway to adjust it, so Chantilly Lace it was. Eggshell for the walls, semi-gloss for the trim. We didn't prime first in most places, but we did prime over the new wood inserts and also on all the knots that showed through the previous layer of paint. They may make their way to the surface again eventually, because we didn't purchase an alcohol-based primer, but at least then we can take action again and have the right paint color for on top of it. We didn't paint the ceiling because it was in good shape, so I guess potentially that could be something we have to deal with later also.

We also bought a new rug, moved where we were mounting our Dyson hand vacuum, and put in brushed nickel light switch plates, to make the whole space look nicer. The rug is Ballard Designs' Antelope runner in blue. Hopefully easier to hide inevitable stains...

Basement door? Nope! Just regular wall trim:

The hallway isn't a place we spend a lot of time in, but it is a place we pass through often. I'm happy that it looks so much more polished and thoughtful now. Whites for the win (though we are evidently never going to have a single white base color in this house...)

Slat Wall Part 5: The Accessories

With the slat wall and bench completed, we knew we wanted to upgrade the nearby furniture as well. This loveseat, a Craigslist find that was already very well loved when we bought it in 2009, was the first candidate for removal. The problem at the time had been that very few sofas/loveseats were under 5' (most being significantly more) and we could not find a single new product that matched our measurements for a reasonable price. This little guy was a mere 55":

Fortunately, 16 years later, there were more choices and we found ourselves seriously considering four or five options from three different stores. We knew we wanted the sofa to be blue, to continue our red/blue color motif for the room and that meant a LOT of swatches:We also knew we wanted velvet or microfiber, having read that cats don't usually like to scratch at them since the weave is so tight/nonexistence that they can't get purchase (which is probably also the reason none of our cats ever used our leather sofa as a scratching post). They definitely LOVED scratching at our cheapo gray love seat and also occasionally scratch at the chaise lounge in our sunroom sometimes.

The loveseats we considered (and went so far as to test out in stores, as much as we could based on floor model availability):

• The Caitlin by Interior Define, but it started at 63"--a tad big for the space. And it was a bit pricy considering it was still a made-in-China kind of piece,
• The Oslo by Interior Define, at 62" and a little less sleek and swoopy,
• Nomad, by Burrow, which sadly only had one acceptable color,
• The Andes by West Elm, with a split seat, metal legs, a little cheaper looking,
• The Andes by West Elm, but with a bench seat,
• The Eddy by West Elm, on a fancy (but also a little funny-looking) base, and
• The Jasper by Room and Board, priced high but made in the US and known for good quality.

It was nice to have options. Maybe too many options...We ended up with a LOT of swatches:

At the same time, we had to clear the side wall to put together a new storage unit. Our brown IKEA Expedit had been a good fit for the space, but all of our wall trim is white and all of the wood in the room was a medium reddish brown, rather than dark chocolate brown. We had help from the cats.

We swapped it for an IKEA Kallax (which is basically a redesigned Expedit--the cubes are the same but there is less trim along the outside). It's a bright "glossy" white rather than the standard white, to make it stand out even more. The new model even has an optional base to get the piece off the floor (easier to clean under it. We also briefly stored our Roomba under it, which was nice way to hide it away.

Again, we had some cat "help" during assembly:

We moved over all of the baskets and doors from our Expedit (there's a picture here to remind you what it looked like.) Because this was against a wall and not being used as a room divider, we also felt we could fill more of the cubbies, rather than leave it more open and airy. So we grabbed a few *more* baskets from around the house to see how it looked, and we also bought a few more buildable doors and drawers from IKEA (plus these cool little globe lamps, Fado)

We realized that while we loved the added storage, we didn't like the mismatched look as much as we had thought. Usually we like to strive for "thoughtfully eclectic" or something, but the various baskets all just looked messy. We turned to Amazon to buy a set of matching ones, while keeping the mismatched drawers and doors and we liked this look much better:

(In keeping with the random pet cameos, I figured the dog could have a turn as well). The most popular new addition was the mirrored door (in this picture, you can see the slat wall behind the camera). Unfortunately the cats really like the wide woven fabric on the bottom baskets, but at least they were not expensive if we have to replace them.

Returning to the sofa, after weighing all the pros and cons over MANY weeks of discussions, we decided on the West Elm Andes with the bench seat. The quality wasn't as high as Room and Board and the look wasn't quite as cute as Interior Define, but knowing that we have pets, we decided maybe we shouldn't buy a top-of-the-line "forever" love seat. The real risk was that for whatever reason, the swatch for the color we thought we preferred did not arrive with the rest of the West Elm swatch, and ended up arriving well AFTER we picked the sofa. I'm sure it took quite a journey through the postal system.

The top swatch is Petrol in performance velvet. The bottom swatch is Ink Blue in performance distressed velvet. We decided we liked the darker blue but not in the distressed look. So we held our breaths and ordered the loveseat in Ink Blue performance velvet (what you see behind the swatches):

And we love it. Thank goodness. The blue is the right color for the room (it goes amazinglu well with a throw we got on a trip). The cats like to scamper on it but not claw it. That does leave some claw marks in the velvet as they take off, claws extended, but those seem to wipe out. Clearly they have accepted it as a place to lounge, as have the kids (it's their favorite spot to lay down on weekend mornings to watch TV and we usually hear them argue over whose turn it is to sit there).

And with that, the slat wall and entry space redesign is over.