Our Basement is Chaotic and I Kind of Love It

Like, every time I walk down the stairs, I completely forget where everything is or that some rooms even exist. 

It's a mess. 

But I really love the messiness of it. It makes no sense at all logistically.

So, of course, my brain wants to make sense out of it. 

Find a pattern, as it were. 

Wanna tour? Okay, twist my arm.

Here is a layout drawing that I asked my fella Mickey to make for me, because my brain just couldn't not conceptualize the basement as a whole. (and also because when I get down there, I know I'm gonna end up talking about the details and not the big picture and I know some of y'all crave that big picture. So give thanks to Mickey for that, okay?)

Now, I feel like it is important to mention that when I was in 7th grade I had no greater dream than to be an architect. It is mostly because it seemed like the most "real job" I could have that was still some kind of creative.

Problem was, I was terrible at it. I was in "Industrial Arts" (which is what my middle school called shop class) and we had a unit on architecture where we learned the block lettering and how to design stuff. 

Of course, I designed a pirate ship-shaped play house for our backyard. It also made no logistical sense (much like our 'new' basement). 

I have a very clear memory of walking this sloppy ship diagram (with painstakingly perfect block lettering, erased and re-blocked tens of times) up to the Industrial Art's teacher's desk and awaited my grade.

He scrunched his face as he looked at it. 

I beamed at him, "I want to be an architect when I grow up!"

He looked panicked and scrawled an "A" on the paper and I went back to my seat. 

I looked at my classmates papers. I did NOT deserve an "A" at all. He musta felt sorry for me and wanted to keep my dream alive. Obviously, the dream died at some point because I am not an architect. 

I bet I can still do those block letters if I try hard enough though. 

Oh, back to our chaotic Professor Haus basement!

The door to the basement is offa the kitchen, to the left of the gas range. =) If you go through the door and turn left, you will see a shelf full of toilet paper, paper towels (whogivesacrap.org - I love them) and other cleaning supplies, but if you turn to the right you'll see this:

Well, you'll see a ordinary landing with this fancy door that leads to the side yard. Yes, that lock takes a skeleton key. We have multiple skeleton key doors in the Professor Haus!!!!! Another delightful detail that lil Jacki would delight in. 

And then opposite that door is this:

Okay, that looks pretty normal, right? 

Welp, if you step into that room this is what you see. 

(It is a panorama, so you might have to open it up.)

Okay, so that's a hallway, a door, the stairs, the not-so-scary boiler that looks it's like from Jetsons times, but, both, the time the show is supposed to take place in, but also the time the show was written. 

Here this a better pic of it, and you can see the room of doors beyond the old equipment! It's just nothing but storage, but it feels really calm in there somehow. I love that room of doors and I have all these masks that we've amassed over the years and each door will get it's own mask. I may paint the room first, but I dunno what color even. 

Bronze?

So, if we turn around and we go down that hallway and what do we see?

Three doors, one slightly ajar. The one directly in front of us is the electrical crap, it is not interesting. The one to the right we will revisit in a moment, but for now lets go inside the "fallout shelter" (I guess if you are in there, that makes you a fallout boi).

I open the door and you're shocked to see a cute lil half bath that looks like it's in a night club or something (just you wait). But no, you'd be wrong, because, if I close the door behind me and turn to the left:

BAM! Shower. And a pretty nice-sized one too! With a ledge for ...stuff. Don't worry, Mickey did not pick out that shower curtain. It came with the place, and we haven't found the perfect punk rock one to replace it yet. 

Okay, cool, but Jacki, you say. What is that other door. What a weird place for a door at the back of a bathroom. So I open it for you.

Aww, shit, y'all!!! It's our laundry rooooooooooom! There are some truly vintage cleaning agents in this room that I am loathe to get rid of. I might just have a vintage themed laundry room, but that will definitely be the last room I theme in the house, because I have so many ideas for all of the rest of it already. 

Oh, not pictured to the left is a lengthy folding table and a laundry chute! it works! We tried it! It was very dusty!

Ok, so let's get out of that weird labyrinth of water-based rooms and find out what was behind the door on the right. 

This is probably the most normal part of the basement. This is also where, if you look up, you can see that knob and tube wiring I can never remember the name of. 

Okay, full disclosure, it has been so long since I took these pictures this afternoon that I'm getting a little turned around. THAT's how chaotic this basement is. 

 Okay, so I *think* if we turn completely backwards from where we're looking above, you'll see this:

Okay, yes! yes! I am oriented again, I think. This is just one example of how annoying it is to have aphantasia. It's hard to describe but that is a perfect example. I can't picture my basement unless I'm in it or actively looking at a photo of it. 

Ok, so those two doors - one leads to the stairs area and one (the open one) is the one in the three door bathroom/electrical crap/other door area. 

But it's the door in the pic above this one that gets me all tingly. Because that's the one that leads to my favorite room in all of the basement. 

Okay, here it is:

But Jacki, you say, that's just a normal room with a brick wall and some damp (don't worry, getting the basement waterproofed is number 2 on our list after some electrical upgrades), why is it so special?

Well, let me walk all the way into the creepy corner in the left side of this room and maybe you will understand. 

 

I dunno, it's just this sexy, creepy sliver of a room and I love it. After we get it waterproofed, I'm turning it into the Red Room from Twin Peaks, red velvet, black and white floor and all. 

See? We're taking our time with the Professor Haus. We know what each room is gonna be and we're making lists of what we need or want for them. When we find it, we'll know it and we'll buy it immediately. 

Some rooms are gonna be easier than others, but all of them are gonna be worth it. 

I can't wait wait to tell y'all about my John Waters balcony plans!

Okay, welp, that is our chaotic basement. That spoopy room is my favorite, but here is one more detail I love about the basement:

These glass block windows. It was a silly detail I really wanted in our "new" home and, welp, they are just the icing on the cake, aren't they?