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Back in 1995 I was the first of my friends to get married. And I had no idea what kind of gown, cake, flowers or anything that I wanted. I had never even cracked open a Brides magazine until I was engaged and had six months to plan a wedding. I remember wishing that I had allowed myself to dream a little and figure out what I did and didn’t like.

So when we lived in our rental house without knowing when we would ever buy our own home, I started a pinboard for my dream kitchen. Just in case, one day if we ever bought a house I’d be armed with photos of things I loved for a kitchen.

It felt self-indulgent and a little dumb. At the time we were over $100,000 in debt, with bad credit and I didn’t feel a lot of hope for ever buying an inexpensive house, much less having any say on what kind of kitchen I wanted.  In 20 years of marriage and 14 houses, I had never even picked my own counters before.

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A few years later we ended up buying a house and at the last-minute we decided on a kitchen remodel that we’d do in phases and I had to make most of the decisions in about a two-week time frame. I had never designed a kitchen. But it was pure joy because I already did my research thanks to Pinterest.

Now I’m in planning/dreaming mode again.

Why?

Guess what? Our house has a big basement!

Our basement is the size of our family room, dining area and kitchen. A good chunk of it is set up for storage and we had to tear part of it out (ceiling/walls/flooring) when we bought the place to make some structural fixes–but we still have this potentially amazing space that technically, is the largest room in our house. Once we are ready to invest in it.

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Now that we have the main floor finished-ish and the upstairs bathroom done, we’ll be taking a break from actively making changes for a while, but that means it’s time to dream. I’ve found it’s better to make plans when we aren’t ready to make the changes, because I’m don’t limit myself with my dreams for a space–this is the fun part–time to make a Pinterest board!

Y’all, we have never taken on a project like this. We do not have the cash saved for this project and I don’t know where it will come from. I have no start date and no deadline. But I do know one thing–those things all hinder me from dreaming freely. So this moment–whether it be four months or four years is my chance to dream, scheme and plan! What fun!

Today I wanted to share some photos of our torn up basement. It’s rough, y’all…but I trust you.

The stairs to the basement are right behind the niche in our kitchen

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See that first door on the right? Basement.

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We think it used to be a garage possibly. And then years ago someone put paneling up and a drop ceiling and of course, florescent lights and a massive bar. Half of which we already tore out to put in some columns and access pluming and electricity for the kitchen remodel. The great thing is, it can be heated and cooled with our existing unit –it already has duct work and vents that can be opened or closed…we even tested it out the first year and it’s super warm down there when we open the vents for the furnace.

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The ONE natural lighting source in the basement–a pair of old double doors that lead to this adorable-yet-falling-apart screened in porch (which today is a total mess because we use it for storage) but, y’all–that slate floor!!

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Here’s the wonky little porch from the outside on the back of the house. It leads to our honky-tonk pool–so ideally, this could be a really great space–there’s even a paved little nook to the left where we could one day put an outdoor shower.

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The first year we were here, before we were using the barn, I had the white sectional upstairs and we used the leather sofa in the basement and had a TV down there for an extra room for the boys to use with friends. Since then, we’ve moved the sofa upstairs, the basement had leak, and now it’s a depressing dumping ground.

But that’s okay.

This space has great potential, needs a lot of attention and a good plan. Tomorrow, I’ll share a few ideas I have for the room. (it’s now tomorrow–here are my ideas so far!)

Here’s the hope.

If you have a space that desperately needs attention, I hope you see the value in dreaming about it even if it’s not yet possible to make any changes. So many times I’ve waited until we had the money or time to change a space –and then realized I had no idea what I wanted. No more!

Start a pinboard for the space today and DREAM! It’s so fun, and now it the PERFECT time!

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