When we finished the basement, we envisioned a space that could be used by the whole family.  We added a guest room/office, full bath, closet, utility room, and a great room with a sectional couch and TV.  We put in Dupont’s Smart Strand carpet, which cannot be stained.  Not by a pukey cat, not by a purple marker, not by A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G.  It is a marvel of modern day science and is so soft that I like to roll around on it and sing silly little songs like, “Why can’t I afford this carpet upstairs?”, and “If I’d only replaced my carpet upstairs before I quit my job”.  My brother-in-law is an architect (with his own practice should you be in the need of an architect), and how he took our little half basement and turned it into the best floor in the house…I’ll never know.  He’s MAGIC.

The basement is a “sunlight” basement with very wide window wells, making it the sunniest floor in the house.  Isn’t that odd?  It’s so bright that the girls rarely turn on the lights to play.  So here’s the catch: WE NEVER USED IT.  Other than guests staying in the “guest suite” (I hear it is awesomely cool and quiet…I’ve never stayed in it!), we never ventured down to our Ninja basement.

I finally decided it was because the toys sat in big baskets, heaps & piles, and in rubbermaids all over the place. Who the heck wants to play in a big messy pile of toys without any rhyme or reason to where anything is stored? It felt chaotic to me and it must have felt chaotic to the girls, because they never wanted to go down and play.  Who wants to relax and watch a Saturday night movie surrounded by a pile of JUNK?  Yuck.

Hence, Operation Organize the Basement took place last spring.  It consists of a short set of shelves and some buckets.  Yep, ROCKET SCIENCE was employed for this project.  Total cost: about $140.  I organized the toys by genre (after putting months of thought into what toys we’d be keeping and what toys were zero value added to our playscape): doctors kit in one bucket, play scarves in another, pom poms clearly need a large bucket, Calico Critter pieces in the small pots, my fabric scraps in the hat box, magic wands in the pitcher, etc.  At first I thought…this won’t work.  They can’t reach their toys.  But they are children…they will always find a way to get to their toys.  We moved their toy boxes downstairs as well, to hold larger items and random toys (i.e. princess tiles which seem to find a way into every game they play).  The old toy basket now holds stuffed animals and dolls.  Greg finished the shelving reorg by adding a computer loaded with Reader Rabbit to the bottom shelf.  Sara plays the games while sitting on a little desk chair and Kelly stands next to her and laughs and laughs.  Those two crack me up.

Now the basement is a sunny and safe playspace, mere steps from the kitchen.  I can easily hear the girls while I cook dinner, and they happily trot down to play at least once a day, if not more often.  Our 15 minutes of basement play has turned into hours.  The kids can rip it apart, and with the bucket system, we can put it back together in minutes.  Making the kids’ playspaces clean, sensible, and enjoyable, always pays off in free hands and free time for the Momma.

I like to follow some simple rules about the girls and their “stuff”: I don’t want them to play anyplace I wouldn’t want to play.  I don’t want their toys to hold so little value to them that it’s OK for them to sit in piles.  My stuff isn’t stored in piles so their stuff isn’t stored in piles.  I’d rather them have a few good toys they really enjoy than a house full of junk that serves little purpose other than to chew up batteries.

OK, I’m back down from my crap toy/hyper-consumerism soap box.  I’m sure there are lacing cards somewhere that need unwound…