Operation: Reclaim the Basement

In the time-honored tradition of getting things done by making them public and then allowing the great workings of the innerwebs to shame you into completing the project, I will unveil our awful secret:  our basement might just be hiding Jimmy Hoffa.

It's actually much worse in person

Adding to our guilt/motivation is that we've been promising the kids for, oh, a year now that we'll get the basement cleaned out and convert part of it to their playroom.  Bonus for us: toys leave the main level so we can at least pretend that a Toys R Us didn't explode in our house.  Noelle reminds me of this promise every chance she gets so we have begun! We are having a giant family yard sale in a few weeks in which we will get rid of all of the baby gear and toys and clothes that my children will never wear again as they don't grow down.  Let's delve deeper into the carnage, shall we?
This is our storage area; at some point in the not so distant future I hope to actually be able to store things here in a semi-organized way.  The picture painted in my mind's eye of course is vintage IKEA because, well, WANT. 

The good news is that we have more toilet paper.

In this corner the idea is to get rid of the papers, downsize the desk and make is the office/exercise/scrapbooking corner. 

Oh HAI ancient virus-ridden desktop PC and various important papers.

I'm still not entirely sure how this is all going to come together; the details are a bit nebulous.  And the elliptical a bit...big.

Zombie exercise machines want to eat your sweat

This will be our secondary entertainment area.  See? The couch, TV stand and giant ancient TV are already in place.  Just add some display cabinets flanking the couch or the entertainment center and a home for the myriad action figures currently residing in the storeroom along with a hundred million boxes of comic books.  That are not mine. Ahem.

The black lump on the left is the ancient TV.  The couch...nevermind.

Look!  A bathroom!  What? You can't see it? Well, you'll just have to take my word that there is a full bathroom through the darkened door though it could lead to Narnia at this point and no one would even know. 

I really hope that it's not a potty emergency.

Wait, hold it.  THIS is the actual entrance to Narnia.  Or out of season clothes.  You never can tell.

Or, you know, vampires.  It could happen.

And now, the area that will house the kids toys, art supplies, doll houses, train tables, table and chairs, toy boxes, play kitchen and more IKEA organizing things.  The vision in my head is practically orgasmic.  No, I don't have the faintest idea what we'll do with the overflowing bookshelves/movies/CD towers.  Mixed media art? Or the world's largest pop culture yard sale.  THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS. 

What do you mean you can't get the full effect? It's like a tower of boxes is blocking your view or something.

Now, Internet, you have seen my shame.  I've laid bare my cluttered soul for your judgement and nagging prodding. My motivation wanes after beginning a project so I'm depending on you, oh wondrous citizens of the innerwebs, to keep me moving.  Guilt, reminders and cattle prods are all fair game*.

* You are on your own in sourcing the cattle prods however.