Yesterday, we posted a "before" pix of Gina in her basement, so I thought today I'd come clean with my own basement pix that I promised back in July:
Mind you, this was ten years ago, when we were renting what is quite possibly the Ugliest House in the World. And, it turned out, one of the spookiest. I never felt good in that house; at the time, put it down to the tiny rooms and awful green siding. But oftentimes--in the kitchen, the living room, in the dreaded basement-- I felt as if someone was standing directly behind me. Of course, no one ever was, and over time I trained myself not to look. One day I was by the window, petting our Maine Coon cat, Mau-Mau Kitty who was standing on a nearby desk, when I felt the familiar presence behind me. I ignored the feeling and turned my attention back to the cat, whose fur was now standing on end. His eyes had turned from half-closed slits to enormous orbs, fully dilated and worse, Mau-Mau was looking past me, over my shoulder. And then, still looking over my shoulder, he bared his teeth and hissed.
Thus scared out of my wits, I suggested to Alpay that a little house hunting might be in order, nevermind the fact we'd just renewed the lease for another year. A week or so later, we ran into our neighbor, a wary, quiet man who kept to himself. I told him the story about the cat and he nodded. The place had been empty for more than a year, he'd said. "You ever go down to the basement?" he said then.
It turns out that something very bad had indeed happened in that basement. I pretty much stopped going down there, which in turn explains why there's no "after" pictures of my basement makeover project. The only thing close are the pictures of our storage unit, which we got in short order in preparation of moving.
When house hunting, we'd considered a stately old Georgian with two full stories, a big backyard, a garage and, yes, a basement. I'd always thought a basement was a must-have for any home we'd consider buying: where else would we store the roof-top car shell we'd used once and never again used? What about odds and ends of furniture I didn't particularly like but somehow might need some day? Or the boxes upon boxes of . . . what? What was in those boxes? Could I even say?
The convenient thing about a garage, a basement, an attic or a shed--or a storage unit, for that matter--is that you can store things without thinking much about them, and that is what I had wanted. That is why a basement was on my must-have list for a house. But standing in the Georgian's basement, I kept thinking about the basement in the ugly house. And suddenly I wasn't so sure I wanted a basement after all.
It's been a big adjustment to live in a condo. That's what we chose: 1200 square feet with a bird's eye view of the city. Parking spaces but no garage, and no basement either. It's forced us to make decisions; it forced us to be choosy. That first winter, I estimate we gave or threw away 10 dumpsters worth of stuff. Over the following two years, we got rid of enough stuff to get rid of the storage unit, too. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that I don't miss any of it. Nothing. Not a thing. Not the stuff. Not the space. I've found that I actually like compact living: I like having everything just steps away. It's easier to clean. It's easier on the knees--no trudging up and down stairs. And I like the selectivity that a small space enforces, how I've developed the attitude to "keep the best and toss the rest". My closets can get a little scary at times, but nothing like the basement in the ugly house. And believe me, that's a good thing.