Grandiose Basement Plans

One thing nearly every guy wants is a basement. Guys like basements because they tend to be a dank, scare kids, and have smells that keeps everyone but other guys out. All that adds up to the real reason guys like basements: unmolested beer drinking (SWEET!).

The house my wife just bought has an unfinished basement. It’s nice and dusty, has a mechanical room with a monster heater and a couple of hundred feet of finished area. Fortunately you have to cross the unfinished area to get to the finished area. All this adds up to my own private cave. Excellent.

Here’s the rub, all we will lack to completely finish the basement is a floor. No really, take a look:

I’ve put down a lot of floors. Hardwood floors, laminate floors, tile floors. Hell, I can’t walk into a house without thinking about putting down a floor. So I know I could easily put down a floor, well maybe not so easily it’s a thousand square feet if you add the other usable part (look again)

So now I’ve got to find flooring, fotunately I found some laminate 2nd quality for 86 cents a square foot. Pretty cheap. So my plan was to toss a floor down (note to self: buy table saw first). Which is a great idea, after all the house will be completely finished (well not the mechanical room, but a table saw will live there).

Then I figured: Hey this is plenty big for a pool table plus the cinder block cove is perfect for a standup mame machine and a pinball machine (either Pinbot, Carnival or Adams Family). I could also build a nice wet bar area, stick a foosball table in the octagon area and have room left over to host weekly cock fights.

Then the realization hit me: guys have been thinking grandiose thoughts like this for all eternity. Caveman Mook once said “Um, me put club sharpening area in lower cave. Friends come over and eat fermented berries”

In short I realized it wasn’t going to happen. Honestly. it’s a chore for me to leave the toilet seat down and I’m thinking I’m going to floor, paint, build a bar, buy a pool table, track down a pinball machine and build a standup mame cabinet? I might as well plan on discovering a few elements, deriving a proof of Fermat’s last theorem turn bulldog flatuence into Chanel number 5 and teach Nate calculus…by Thursday.

Smells Awful

Doesn’t know math

Of course that’s not all bad. It saves me from flooring a thousand square feet and starting on a jillion projects. More importantly if I did everything I wanted to the basement would become a very desireable place to be. I wouldn’t be able to keep the kid away with a Taser. This would ruin the essence of a basement and leave me pining for an out building. I think I’ll turn my attention to a more manageable project: building a computer desk (to replace my old space minimizing custom built job) and be thankful for dust and smells. Plus I’ll still need a table saw…..