What Ana Does

The corner of the basement that was hit by all that water is really making progress. The builders were here for the last month, replacing walls and building back the bathroom. And (hooray!) they finished up yesterday. Which means this space is MINE again to work on. I've been dying to get my hands on it and get it ready for our Christmas visitors.  I look some progress shots ...  And this is where I step in. They removed all the chair molding around the entire basement while they were at it, and I'm so excited to see it painted one color.  I ordered new scones to replace the ones on the wall (see them on the right?) and should get them Sunday.  The sofa is uncertain. I checked in on it last month and they said it was coming, but nothing yet.  But, this week I'm on a tight deadline to paint the floor and walls.  Here I go ....  Basement Posts To refresh your memory, here's the plan for this TV watching area .  And the FULL basement vision pos t. 

 I *just* saw this image on Pinterest and I'm in LOVE ....  Link to Pinterest Post Now, let's imagine this super-easy, though, yes, time-consuming, on this wall ...  in place of the white Crate&Barrel shelves. Stocked with my work products in the cabinets and jars of dried beans, flour/sugar, etc. on the shelves. DREAMY! (OMG ... I'll hide the microwave in there!)  OR  Even here, in place of the bench and hooks.  All we're looking at is store-bought upper cabinets, painted, with a butcher block top. Bead board backsplash and some simple hanging shelves with peg hooks below. And painted a deep, rich color. All really simple solutions you can buy at Home Depot. $500 budget?  Yes? Go for it? 

 but ... I painted one anyway.  The black Chalkboard Paint is still drying  I know! I watch HGTV and I'm always yelling at the designers to NOT PAINT that mural. UGH. It's awful. But this little corner of the basement near the bottom of the stairs just NEEDED a little style and I hadn't really thought of the full concept of this whole basement (this was before the water/hurricane Ida catastrophe) and I really wanted to be fun and bold and creative.  Alice I picked the colors and away we went!  Here's the tape ....  And the first coat ...  This corner was going to be the little gym nook, but I decided to squeeze the pool table in here so we could have more space in the media/TV area. So, now, this cool mural will be over that pool table (that we moved with just the four of us and snapped off two legs in the process ... but that's another story).  It will be fun! We'll keep score on the chalkboard and I'll hang a cool light fixture over the whole thing that co