We spend a lot of time in our basement. It’s where most of our kid’s toys are, we have a family room area with a TV and my computer is there. (My husband has a separate office where his computer is) The kids also keep some toys in their room, but for the most part, their play time happens in the basement-it’s my way of keeping order in the rest of the house. I have recently organized the play area in the basement. It used to get pretty out of control with toys everywhere, so I bought a bunch of tupperware bins and keep them all in the closet right off the play area. Now, when they want to play with a lot of toys, they get the tupperware bin out of the closet. They are only allowed to have two bins out at a time and have to clean them up before they get a new one out. I think it helps them understand that there is a place for each of their toys. This picture is the view of my desk area and the play area, on the other side of the room we have our living room area of the basement. We also have a bathroom, work shop, craft area and laundry area in the basement. 

So one morning I woke up and decided I was going to repaint the basement and make over my computer table. So I painted the walls a light grey but kept the teal accent wall. I wish I had taken a before image, but the desk was black and the lamps had paper lantern shades on them that were ripped. And the mirror was red on the wall and it was the only thing on the wall. So it was a complete transformation. I finished everything in one day so that when my husband got home from work at about 4:30 It would all be done. I do these projects like little challenges for myself because sometimes my husband doesn’t notice and I think it’s funny, so I will paint a room and move everything back how it was and see how long it takes him to notice it changed. Or I will make something and then ask him what is different in the room. 

I found these little cactus plants at Walmart and bought these white vases there, I taped off the top and spray painted the bottom gold. I also spray painted the lamps gold and bought new shades for them. I painted the chair, and some frames and the mirror for the gallery wall.

After I took the pictures of the chair, I decided to add some gold vinyl decals leftover from my daughter’s room. And also, since these photos were taken my computer bit the dust and I had to buy a new 27 inch iMac. And it’s a pain reinstalling everything-but my husband loves doing stuff like that so I let him do all that hard work 🙂

My kids love playing with legos, so we have this long table in their craft area for legos. We added the shelves, storage and train track a few years ago.

These little chairs were a garage sale find that I spray painted.

Last time we were at my parent’s house I grabbed this old map of Michigan. My husband made a frame for it with some old wood that was left from the original owners of our house.        For the teepee tutorial go here, for the chalkboard clipboard tutorial go here, for the DIY wall decals tutorial go here.