A Play Room – The First Spring Clean Project

Okay..here we go….the first project in my Big Green Spring Clean. Well, actually it is my second. It was such a nice day yesterday I started cleaning up sticks and leaves from the yard but that will be ongoing.

Anyway…I decided to start with the first room in my basement. It will serve as a playroom and homeschool room for the kids but as you can see from the BEFORE pictures below it was in a sad state. On the left side of the room I had a bounce house that the kids would almost never play on. So that got moved to another room in the basement and I “hope” the kids will let me sell it at a garage sale.

The right side of the room was full of miscellaneous junk and tubs with toys which were scattered everywhere. Much of the stuff was my brothers as he moved in with a 2 bedroom apartment’s worth of stuff and his bachelor pad (also in the basement) is only 20×30. I moved all that stuff out into the next room over and he and I will figure out what to do with it.

We also have a problem keeping the stairs and landing clean as whenever someone (including me) is too lazy to take something downstairs we just er…uhm… throw it down there. I vow to put a stop to that. ;)

So here is what I did in the room:

1. Scrubbed the wood stairs and banister with BabyGanics floor cleaner.

2. Scrubbed the epoxy floor (also with BabyGanics) and realized that it needs a new coat of paint but I am thinking I may wait on that until I can tile it.

3. Set up a couple of my old fabric cutting tables to use for arts and crafts and homeschool projects. On them I put bins for supplies. I also put up some educational posters and charts from a rockin education supply store I just discovered.

4. I put all the toys in plastic tubs I already had on hand and we will get one out at a time.

5. Set up a music area with an electric keyboard we haven’t touched in years and daddy’s old acoustic guitar. Now we can jam down there together. :)

6. Put an unused futon down there for seating, as well as a couple chairs.

7. Put a TV and DVD player in one corner for videos. If my son ever develops am interest in video games this would be a good place to keep them.

8. I took my daughter’s wood play kitchen from her room and put it down there. Since she never spends time in her room she might get to play with it more now.

9. Moved most of the kids books and games to the playroom on bookshelves. We also have a special basket for library books so we don’t loose any.

10. Cleaned out the small windows in the basement…cobweb city. I used BabyGanics Window and Surface Cleaner.

11.  Cleaned some rugs and put them down on the floor including my favorite pink rag rug I got a garage sale last year.

12. Put up baby gates to keep my youngest away from the stairs and from wandering the rest of the basement…at least until it gets spring cleaned too.

I also made a really cool discovery. I have a laundry shoot underneath the carpet in my closet! I saw it from the basement side of the floor. So someday when I finally rip up that carpet to see if the hardwood underneath is salvageable I will have a laundry shoot. :)

I also put together my yard sale wish list for this room: homeschool supplies, a desk (preferably an old fashioned school desk), a sewing desk, and art supplies. I also started my “to be sold at our yard sale” pile.

Still to do: Get a desk or table for my laptop and for sewing. Also the stairs have a banister but are otherwise open (an accident waiting to happen) so that needs to be addressed pronto.

Here are the AFTER pictures:

The kids and I LOVE it. Spring Cleaning is going good so far. How is yours going?