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!
