This is how I tackled the basement layout.

We wanted to have a laundry room. play space, family room and space to store The Stuff. Currently, my "laundry room" exists on one side of the basement but my laundry chute is on the other side of the basement.

It's not really a big deal to haul the clothes from point A to point B, but sometimes pieces of wood from our wood stack get mixed in with the laundry on the floor (I can't keep up with laundry all the time, so sometimes it overflows on the floor, geez. Get off my back already).  Anyway, that's why I have wood chips in my washing machine from time to time. First world problem, I know. It's was a no brainer to move the washer & dryer to where the laundry chute is. They'll be able to hang out all the time and be best friends, I just know it.  Placing the laundry room was the easy part. The storage room for The Stuff was also easy because we already have shelves build for the masses of rubbermaid containers we've accumulated over the years. That leaves the giant space in the middle of the basement. Unfortunately, our fireplace is situated in a weird spot in the middle of everything and directly behind it is the furnace. And of course, the giant sewer pipe is there also, along with a column that I could move if I wanted to spend thousands more to move it and pour new concrete footings. To make a "furnace room" I basically have to put walls up around the furnace and it will look like a giant drywalled cube in the middle of everything.  Sigh.
"But Laura," you say, "just relocate the furnace to the storage room." Donations toward this idea are readily accepted and appreciated. While that fundraiser is going, I will forge ahead and work with my giant drywalled cube, my sewer pipe, and weird fireplace. Here's what I worked out for basement layout with some serious help from my sister. I needed to pull in a pro because I was still drowning in the anxiety of the sewer pipe. And yes, we really did draw it out on a piece of construction paper. No ruler! No regard for scale!   And you, my friends, can do it too.  Here's what I worked out. If I must have a giant cube in the center of the room, I have to make it somewhat functional. The cube with have a shared wall with a closet and our wood stack, which will look somewhat like this:

So that's how I am dealing with the giant cube. We divided the rest of the space into two hemispheres and placed the family room on the side with the fireplace.

As I am writing this, it sounds so simplistic, but it took many hours of wandering around the basement to figure this out. Other factors include: 1. TV placement - choosing a wall where window glare will be minimized and furniture layout makes sense. 2. Closet placement & scale - know what you'll be storing in your closets. I made lists of what is going in each closet so I know how much room I need to store things. One of my closets with hold most of the girls' toys & dress up clothes while the other will store games & blankets. Also, I chose to situate one closet on the backside of tv wall to run media cords through. 3. Door placements: I have to deal with overhead pipes, so I have to make sure all my doors will be able to slide without running into a low-hanging pipe. 4. Flooring options & transitions - we will have LVT (a type of vinyl tile great for basements, I've heard) in part of the basement and carpet in the rest. I want vinyl in the laundry room, in the girls' art corner and in front of the fireplace so we won't track mud onto carpet when we haul in wood. 5. Outlet spacing, number & placements - for the most part, it doesn't matter to me where the outlets are because I know that building code prescribe placing an outlet every "x" feet (6, I think). But there are a couple places where I know I will want to have an specific outlet for a lamp, or sewing machine, or for the girl's to have a cd player. I marked all these specific outlets on my sketch so I would remember to speak to the electrician about it. 6. Furniture, both real & imagined - imagine what pieces you have & what kinds you may like to have in a certain area. This may help you plan the placement of walls in the room, as well as where your outlets will go. We will have a sectional in the basement and I want the sectional to be open to the fireplace area which helped us decide what wall the tv would be on. Also, I plan on someday having some sort of furniture piece in front of the fireplace, so I need a specific outlet there to plug a lamp into.   7. Light switch placement & function - which areas make the most sense for a light switch? When I enter the basement, I want a light switch available so I don't stumble around in darkness. But I don't want that switch to turn on every light in the entire basement. And once I go into one room, I may want to switch off a light in the other room(s). This process took me a lot of time, mostly because I am such a visual person and to plan this part out with no walls framed up is especially difficult.  8. Lighting - I definitely want the basement to feel bright and "least-basementy" possible. We're leaving the ceiling exposed and decided on track lights over recessed. However, instead of mounting them on the bottom of the joists, we're considering mounting them on the sides of the joists to increase headroom. All the heads will have full pivot so we can shine the light wherever we want. Also, we can add extra heads to a track if we feel like a certain area is a bit dark. Hopefully my process will be helpful to you as your draw out your plans on construction paper. Just please don't use a ruler or draw neatly because it'll make the rest of us look bad.

Let's begin by showing you my basement. Keep in mind that as horrible as these photos are, the basement used to be much, much worse.

No judging allowed in these pictures. I'm keeping it real here. 









You may have noticed that my basement has a serious pipe issue. I have lost a lot of sleep over what to do with the ridiculous amount of pipes.

"Learn to knit. And then knit a cover for it!"


"Turn it into a birch tree!"

You know what, Pinterest? I appreciate your enthusiasm but I don't even know why we're friends. Your ideas can be really lame. I decided to embrace the giant pipe in front of the fireplace (to the best of my ability). I plan to spray paint it a matte black so that with the exposed ceiling and black track lighting, it will actually fit with the whole rustic/industrial vibe which is popular right now. I plan to leave the ceiling exposed because it's already low (and a drop ceiling adds $8K to the project). I may either paint the whole thing or will just paint the pipe a matte charcoal. Step 1: Pipe Problem resolved(ish).

My house is having an identity crisis. If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you know that I have lacked progress of any kind in choosing the right paint color for my home's exterior.  It began with a gray blue in May 2014:


Nope. It doesn't really tie in with the brick.
In November I thought I'd try out some earth tones.
Looks great on the paint cards but lame on the house. 
Later that month I tried a chalky gray with blue/green undertone. 

Nope.

At this point I am so tired of spending money on the paint pots. Each and every time I go into Sherwin Williams, the same guy is working and he probably knows all by children's birthdays and favorite movies by now. Thankfully he is a really helpful guy, but each time I walk in and see him working, I duck my head in shame because I am back...again.  Come on, Chris. Take a vacation or something. 
This was the state of my front window all winter long because it was too cold to paint. So embarrassing. I am starting to think it looked better as a board up. At least all the color of the plywood boards were consistent and non-offensive.

In the next couple of weeks, the construction on the basement will begin so I've been chipping away at a couple projects to get ready. We have several original doors left from the remodel that I've been refinishing in the basement over the past couple of weeks and now they're looking a lot prettier.

Here's the door I'm working on now. It used to be the swinging door between the kitchen and dining room, but will be the new [pocket!] door for the laundry room.

There's a hard, glossy finish on it that's been challenging to sand. I learned that while sanding, keeping tissues handy is a good idea. There's a lot of sawdust!

We've also been looking into insulation options for the basement because it's currently very cold down there. One of my neighbors told me about a program in Wisconsin that helps homeowners out with energy efficient upgrades.  The specific program we're working with is Home Performance with Energy Star, which addresses air seal & insulation improvements.  I scheduled an energy assessment with one of Focus on Energy's "Trade Allies", Weatherization Services, for $99.  If you are income qualified, you may be eligible for a free energy assessment.  The assessment recommends different energy upgrades and after a Trade Ally completes them we will get an instant savings of 33% off the bill (up to $1250). Nice. There may also be some tax rebates available, which is something I am looking into now.  It's not that fun to spend money on insulation, but this program helps the process be slightly more exciting. Plus we will have a snug little basement. For those of you who don't live in Wisconsin, check with your local utility company for a similar program. If your state doesn't have a program, just consider moving to Wisconsin.  Problem solved.                                                        

Large, inviting front porches. Walkable, well-lit streets. Shared green spaces. Sidewalks to encourage pedestrian traffic. Affordable, gorgeous, well-built homes. Close proximity to downtown. Block parties. Diversity. Children playing basketball on makeshift street courts. Neighbors greeting each other as they walk their dogs or shovel snow. Access to great schools. Bike lanes. Nearby, mixed-use commercial corridors. 
This weekend I was listening to NPR's coverage of the Mueller Community in Austin.  For those who don't follow this series, NPR is currently featuring a series of stories related to urban living in their Cities Project. 
The Mueller Community was developed as a "masterwork of smart urban design" with many of the above-listed features.  The old airport closed years ago and city planners and developers designated the 700 acres close to downtown Austin as a space for a new urban neighborhood.

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Mueller, like other new urban neighborhoods, was designed and built for people who want to foster meaningful community. The homes are built close together, each home with a large inviting front porch, garages oriented in the back yard, and sidewalks that beckon pedestrians.  In Mueller, neighbors spend time together on their porches, use the shared green spaces to celebrate birthday parties, walk their dogs, and enjoy the amenities of the neighborhood. They have easy access to downtown. They know their neighbors. Mueller, and neighborhoods like it, are built with people (not cars) in mind.
Like an Urban Mayberry.
Of course, Mueller is not the first neighborhood in the new urbanist movement. Most new urban neighborhoods have marketed themselves as sustainable, energy-efficient, diverse, walkable, mixed-use spaces with high population density and smart public transport. They offer a range of housing types (apartments, condos, single family) to encourage a diverse, vibrant market and range of affordability.
And people are buying. 
Buyers in new urban neighborhoods are drawn to mental pictures of diversity, of multiracial children playing in the streets under the watchful eye of nearby adults sitting on a front porch and enjoying conversation after a long day at work. They imagine walking their dogs and stopping for an impromptu chat on the sidewalk.  They see themselves walking to a park on a Saturday to relax, or biking to the nearby cafe for a morning coffee and the newspaper. It's idyllic. They imagine a rich life, full of diverse friendships and meaningful connections. 
I'm going to take a risk here and say that most of us say we want to live meaningful lives with diverse friendships, but our choices do not reflect that. 
Let's be honest. There is not a single thing new about this "new urbanism". My 100 year old neighborhood touts all the features of new urbanist design, but to a better degree. The housing stock is better quality, more affordable, and the proximity is closer to downtown than many new urban neighborhoods. Yet there is no buzz, no media coverage, no frenzy of people buying up homes and developing the commercial corridors here.  
You know why. We don't know how to right the ship of existing urban neighborhoods, so we build new ships. It's hard not to take it personally when developers and buyers would rather build an exact replica of my neighborhood (except use cheaper materials and craftsmanship), situate it farther from downtown, and pay three times more for said cheaper home farther away just so they don't have to live in my neighborhood. What a bitter taste it leaves in my mouth.  I cannot even imagine how some of my neighbors felt over the years as most white people moved out of the city and build whole new suburban societies that solely existed to exclude them.

I'm not mad at these new urban developments. I like sustainable, human-scaled, pedestrian neighborhoods as much as anyone in the new urbanist movement.  I'm happy that people are recognizing an inherent need for community and are choosing to live in a built environment that promotes knowing one's neighbor. But let's call it what it is and it's certainly not a "new" thing. Let's call it Plan B. Because Plan A (moving into existing neighborhoods) is seen as just too hard.
We moved into the city of Milwaukee eight years ago for economic and relational reasons. When we were looking for our first home, we were living on the single salary of a full-time musician while I finished grad school.  Obviously, our main determinate of a home was the price. We found a beautiful home we liked and accepted a dinner invitation from potential neighbors to hear more about the neighborhood before we committed to buy. From that dinner, we learned that many people had been moving to this neighborhood over the past 13 years to live in intentional community with each other. 
We decided to buy that home, partially because the price was right and partially because we were just naive and adventurous enough to try something new. After telling people we planned to "move into the city" we received one of two responses:
1. "Wow, that's awesome. You must feel really called to the city. But I could never do that." 2. "You are crazy. Do you know what it's like there?" And as it turns out, we are neither crazy (that we know of) or dead, which is what the media would have you believe.
As we see it, it makes perfect sense for my husband (who works downtown) to enjoy a short commute on city streets rather than languishing in his car on the interstate. It makes sense for us to have an affordable, well-built home in a neighborhood that both stretches and enriches us beyond measure. We know and enjoy our neighbors. And our children are delighted with spontaneous play with neighborhood kids and invitations from empty nester neighbors to come and jump in the leaf pile in their front yard. 
We sold our first home after living there for seven years and bought a boarded-up home one block away. Although this time we had the resources to buy elsewhere, we decided to purchase the boarded-up house without the naiveté we had the first time. I am thankful we had the opportunity to choose this neighborhood for a second time.
Yes, living in a diverse neighborhood has its challenges. I have looked foolish. I have said or done the wrong thing at the wrong time; I have had moments when people challenge my point of view and I don't know what to say. I have had moments when I felt unsafe. But if I combined those moments together, they are outshone by the moments when I have enjoyed a block party, a spontaneous conversation with a neighbor, a helping hand from a neighbor with a snowblower, an 8-year-long-standing weekly dinner invitation from friends down the street, or a peaceful night on my front porch.
And it's more stimulating, more challenging and more rewarding than anywhere else I've lived. 
Of course, not everyone wants to live in an urban area. But for those of you who get excited about these new urban developments, please consider neighborhoods like mine as a viable option: we are the new urbanism. The urbanism that revives and restores, not the kind that builds from scratch and attempts to fill it so it can be considered "urban". We have the opportunity and challenge to experience revival in these neighborhoods. We are the next new thing. We are the Insiders. We are not Plan B.     We need you, you Architects of Community, you Dreamers, you Entrepreneurs, you Artists, you Young Families, you Empty Nesters, you Change Agents. Not to be the savior of this neighborhood and neighborhoods like this, but just to be here, to live here, to bring your ideas and families here to experience the richness and diversity of living on the inside.  That is the new urbanism.                                                         

I've been doing a lot of thinking & planning regarding the basement. Once finished, it's going to be a central hub of laundry, playing, art projects, movie watching, dance parties, storage, etc., so my brain has been operating on (hopefully) all cylinders to plan out the space.
I hope I get it right.
We have a wood-burning fireplace upstairs and we currently have a wood stack in the basement. And by "wood stack", I mean a pile of wood spilling out all over the floor, leaving bits of bark and dirt to intermingle with my laundry pile. And by "laundry pile", what I mean is whatever clothes are overflowing from the laundry chute basket because I haven't done laundry in awhile. 
Ahem.
Here's the thing: I don't want to build some special wood closet because a.) it's not worth the expense b.) there's something sort of rustic/charming about having a wood stack on display. Or so Pinterest tells me.  
We have a fireplace in the basement & I'd like to have the woodstack next to it. Here's some images that have inspired me:

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Some of the above woodstacks are just for aesthetic. But we will be regularly pulling wood out of ours, so I know I will either line it with something (tin?) or at the very least, paint the inside black so it doesn't look scuffed all the time.  I really like the last photo that has some slanted metal (?) shelves to give the woodstack a zigzag appearance. Does anyone with a woodstack (either indoor or outdoor) have some suggestions for a liner? I'm so excited to get this project underway!