For
the most part, I grew up in a 1920's Beaux Arts stone home. You did
your living upstairs, a big living room, separate dining room, sun porch
and roomy kitchen...and there were servants quarters for back when
servants quartered.
It was a civilized home and the basement was a basement. Not a game room, or family room, it was a basement.
The close it ever would come to being "finished" was painted block walls and a tiled floor.
It
was a great place for winter storage of sports gear, patio furniture,
and tons of canned tomatoes. There were crates and boxes in our
basement that I never looked into until my mother passed away, and to
my surprise, lots of orphaned Christmas decorations that didn't look at
all familiar, had my mother been hoarding Christmas decorations? ...we
really didn't know much about the basement and it's contents...
Most
people my age (somewhere lingering in the 50 range) grew up with that
kind of basement. The basement was the laundry room, the freezer room,
the work bench room. It was the garage's wealthy cousin... the best
place to store wine.
The laundry room was large enough to hang
unmentionables up to dry on a line, put a big freezer up against the
wall and there was room to do a cartwheel if so inclined. Hell,
rollerskating in the basement was a time honored tradition among baby
boomers.
Sometimes while I was waiting for the last minute
or so of the dryer cycle, I would sneak over to explore the mysteries
of the work bench....
Ahhh, the work bench. The one place
in the house, where you could rightly create a mess and use a hammer and
make loud noise without censorship...the best attempt of organization
was a judicious use of peg board and there was always a faint smell of
turpentine. The sharpest most deadly things in the house laid casually
on the work bench, and the saw dust on the floor meant something had
been fixed at some point dontcha know.
We had a cat once
that lived in the basement and would never come out, the only evidence
that it was alive, was a full kitty litter and food that was eaten and
most important of all, the absence of rodents.
Today, the
thought of not having a finished basement is harrowing to young home
buyers...where do we put the kids, where do we put the bar, where do we
hang the Steelers banner? They want drywall, carpeting, granite on
something, recessed lighting and wainscoting somewhere next to builtin
shelves plus a full bath. Well in my house, we call that "upstairs".
In
our home now, we have an unfinished basement...much to the chagrin of
our real estate agent who is chomping at the bit to put our house on
the market....maybe it's because we live in an old 1930's Craftsman and
the basement feels like it should be A BASEMENT... I love the high wood
rafters and the cinder block. I love the coolness of it in the summer
and the behemoth soapstone 600 lb laundry sink, and the steps that open
to big Bombay doors.
There is no rec room, no Rumpus room,
no man cave, no game room, no wainscoting ...just a work bench, laundry
room, a freezer and canned tomatoes.
Sound familiar? Okay
Dr.Freud, yes, I have re-created the basement of my childhood into my
adulthood, and I'm not sure what that means other than, heck yeah, I
liked the basement of my childhood....and maybe one of these days, I'll
find that cat.
