Why We Love Basements (or at least why I think they're cool)
With some company coming, I decided the other day that I needed to straighten up my basement a bit.Basements are totally cool. A basement is an oft unsung-but-integral part of a house. Maybe "integral" is not the best word—but they sure help round out the domicile.
I think it's generally agreed upon that there are two breeds of basements: finished and unfinished. And many basements fit into both categories, as they have finished sections and unfinished sections, as well. Mine is one that has both.
I usually refer to a section of basement that is unfinished as "the bowels of the house." Sounds kind of gross, and, true to form, often these unfinished basements are not particularly cozy, right? Usually they have concrete floors, exposed ceiling joists (actually floor joists from the main level above), and are dusty and dirty. But you need bowels for your house. Well, again, you could live without them, but it's better to have them. Having these bowels is one of the things that really separates apartment living from house living. In my apartments, my cats' less-than-aromatic bathroom shared real estate with my bathroom, my hammer was stored under my bed, and my washing machine and dryer were....well, at the laundromat and doing laundry was always a production. But now, I've got all that stuff and more (including 4 cat boxes and an entire tool-filled workbench) living nicely in my basement in the unfinished "back room." Things are where they're supposed to be. I needn't smell that litter box while I'm in the main living quarters of the house. (Unless I happen to have been very negligent in changing it and it's long overdue for a cleansing.)
And additionally, I've installed tons of electric wire, junction boxes, and all sorts of other home improvement goodies down there, and there is something wonderful about having that one section where the walls and ceiling are always open and you don't really care if the stuff is conspicuously draped in plain site. An open basement downstairs makes for an easy, neat cable line in the bedroom upstairs.
But let's move onto the other basement type: the finished one. There's a huge variation in how nicely people finish their basements. Some people have basements that are very cozy, and you know who the people are that tend to have this set-up, right? People with small houses that need to make optimal use of their basement because they simply don't have the room elsewhere in the house.
Regardless, though, of whether your basement is finished a little bit or a lot, the absolute key to the equation that makes a finished basement such an awesome part of the house is this: No matter how nicely it's finished, it's always not quite as nice as the main quarters of your house.
Isn't that right? It's got that basement-look to it, which is a step down from your living room, for example.
So why is this important? Because if your basement was as nice as the rest of your place, where would you put all that stuff that you really shouldn't keep in your living room? Sure, I've got a TV and DVD player in my basement, but I've also got a treadmill, lots of old drums, posters on the wall from my childhood (that have now become campy in the sense that they are in an adult's house), an old desk that is beat-up-but-handy, and the boxes that my air conditioners are stored in. (When it's winter, the air conditioners are down their, too.) I've also got two boards attached to the wall that I whip a handball against to feed my need to throw and catch, and a very cool wet bar that came with the house. The ironic thing about my appreciation for that bar is that I'm a teetotaler, so I have no idea why I would find a bar cool. But I like it. It makes a good stand for the TV/DVD player when someone is watching from the treadmill.
So, despite the fact that my basement is actually pretty gross—it's one of the few parts of the house that we haven't renovated yet and it is beaten up pretty badly—I love it. It looks like a basement, it smells like a basement, it needs repairs, and although I really don't think it's an appetizing place to eat, if I ever did opt to do so, I wouldn't worry one bit about dripping ketchup on the floor. But if I didn't have a basement, I'd be missing out. Not only on a place to be a slob, but also to keep all that other stuff.
You can put a TV and couch in your living room and you can let your band rehearse in your garage. But you rarely can do it the other way around (unless you're in a college house or something*). A basement is the place where both of those things can be done, and they can even be done simultaneously in the same basement. Indeed, it's a place that is right in the middle: a glorified (car-less) garage or a thumbed-down main-floor den. It's halfway in between.
Thanks for reading.
* My band did briefly rehearse in my livingroom when I was in college.
posted by Steve @ 1:02 PM
3 Comments:
Right now I'd just about kill for a basement... living in a one bedroom condo, my entire place is no bigger than half of Steve's main floor, and I probably have twice as much crap as he does. As it is I had to illigally access the attic just to have some kind of storage space, especially since my main coat closet has been transformed into the computer room I am now typing this from. I need space, man. I need a place to put an Air Hockey table. Someplace where I can build my very own Blue Man Group instruments out of PVC piping and play them horribly and not get a summons. And I'd like a out of the way room to display my collectibles.
Until then I'll just have to live vicariously through Steve's basement.
I'm sorry, but I can't view basements as romantically as you do. I lived in one all through high school. You'd think I would have liked that, living underground like a vampire during my most goth years, but it sucked. I'm so addicted to light now. I live on the 9th floor and we have seven windows in our apartment. Just so you know, that's a lot of windows for a Brooklyn. And they're big windows, too. I always have the blinds and curtains open. I love it. I love being able to see out. My husband and I fight about it all the time. He likes to draw the curtains when he gets home, to have a little privacy. I feel trapped when the curtains are closed. It probably has something to do with the fact that I work here as well as live here, so I need to see what's going on outside.
Basements are also moldy. But, I'm sure you already knew that.
Angela,
I could totally see how you would have a different view of basements if you lived in one exclusively.
I've got to admit, this basement post was totally borne out of a middle class suburban kind of approach, and that probably seems pretty lame to an artsy type from Brooklyn. And it kind of is.
But on the other hand, unlike some suburbanites out there who moved from mom's house to their spouses house overnight, it was my experience of numerous years in apartments and the like where I didn't have the basement that taught be to appreciate what a luxury it is to have a moldy part of your dwelling. Granted, if you're bedroom is in the basement or your whole apartment is in the basement, it's not nearly as cool.
But for cat boxes and tools and out-of-season air conditioners, it's the way to go.
We looked at a lot of apartments over the years that were basements, and we almost took one or two, but we tried to avoid it. Flooding was my main concern always. I feared losing everything I ever had to a bad rain storm.
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