Good morning friends! I apologize for the large gap between posts. As life has a habit to do so, it’s gotten pretty hectic around here between Garrett’s work, my work, beginning the wedding planning, and touring venues, which has clearly left precious little time for work around the house or blogging. Lucky for us, he has a 4 day weekend this weekend, so we have plenty of time to knock out a few more projects on our seemingly ever growing To Do List! Today’s item: The storm shelter. One thing that is undeniably important to me is the safety of my family, and at times that safety is threatened by none other than Mother Nature herself. Who came up with “Mother” Nature anyway? They must have been playing some kind of practical joke on the world. Mothers are supposed to be the ones to nurture us, being tender and kind, comforting us. There is nothing nurturing, tender, kind, or comforting about tornadoes, large storms, or hurricanes! Just saying…but I digress. Living where we do, it is not typical that we will get a full blown categorized hurricane, but we certainly do get the remnants from them on occasion as well as a good few nasty storms here and there. For example, the most recent one that came through as a remnant of Hurricane Isaias knocked off a massive branch between our house and the neighbors’! It doesn’t have to be a Category 5 hurricane to do some damage…

So, as my neurotic self is prone to do, I was set on preparing for these potential scenarios! Now, please don’t misunderstand me here, I absolutely adore our house and couldn’t be happier or more thankful that we are now the proud owners of it! There isn’t a day that goes by that you won’t catch me (or the dogs) stopping in front of any of the many windows that litter the walls of this house while just staring out them watching the deer feed in the backyard, the birds play Red Rover in the front yard trees, the chipmunks darting from plant to plant, or the squirrels playing tag. You picking up what I’m putting down yet? Windows. Every homeowner’s biggest fear when it comes to nasty, limb breaking, tree dismantling, heavy rain filled storms. The vast majority of the time, windows are an absolute joy to those who have the property that they desire to see through the paned glass, but when the wind starts to howl and the trees begin to bow, those windows go from a dream come true to a nightmare causing you to run for cover. And we have them…lots of them. In fact, I can count on two fingers how many rooms in this house do not have a window! That’s right, two. The spare bathroom upstairs and the spare bathroom on the ground floor. As the basement is not finished, there are no walls up to protect another area of the downstairs from the windows that are located down there. At least we have that nice, new, sturdy door down there, right dad?

Now, the spare bathroom upstairs could certainly fit us fine for a night during a bad storm, but its location poses a problem; upstairs. Who wants to be at the highest point of the house during one of these horror moments? Certainly not me. Don’t get me wrong, Kansas may have been a blast for Dorthy but I had to exchange my red slippers for some steel toed boots when I was recently sent to our manufacturing plant to cover for a few weeks and I just haven’t quite found the time to replace them yet! This leaves the ground floor half bath. Not even I could sleep in there comfortably, much less with two other grown adults and two dogs…The best we can manage is the farthest corner from the windows in the basement and to simply move at least partially finishing off the basement higher up on the priority list. So that’s where my work began!

We had already replaced the futon mattress on the futon in the game room, so the old mattress was stashed away until a further use for it could be determined, and that time was now. A while ago I had purchased a protective bag meant for long term storage or moving of mattresses which allowed me to move said futon mattress to the basement safely rather than allowing it to remain stuffed between the entertainment center containing the gaming TV and the wall…

While it was perfectly safe and albeit far out of the way, it certainly was not aesthetically pleasing! I figured it would provide a nice reprieve from the cement flooring in the basement in the event that a storm does send us into sheltering mode. Locating my box of bedding that had not yet been unpacked, don’t judge me, I found an old full sized comforter, a full set of sheets, pillow covers, and two extra pillows that would fit the futon mattress perfectly. Though I may have not yet unpacked the excess bedding, there are other things we have unpacked so I grabbed an empty plastic bin and stuffed my finds in them, setting them by the mattress on the floor and satisfied with the beginning of our very own storm shelter. Ignore my continuous hopes that nothing comes through causing us to need to use it until I am able to develop this space more…

They say that the best shelving to use for long term storage, especially in a basement that is susceptible to humidity, remains those made of metal. Unfortunately, those are not cheap I’ve come to find! Thankfully I happened across a set of them that are actually shorter than me (surprise! I can reach the top shelf!!) and were only $40 a piece! So, obviously, I snagged the last two immediately and began the organizational plotting in my head. I, of course, will need more of them down the line but two is a great start. Armed with shelving for storm shelter essential storage, it was back to the basement to further advance the makeshift shelter! I put one shelf together, found a smaller box that would fit both the bedding and the shelf and began to set it up. Locating another box, I grabbed some supplies and filled it, placing it on the shelf as well. But something was missing…The flooring is all cement down there, so I wanted to add a little rug and I knew just the perfect one!

Previously Garrett and I had purchased a runner to put under the front entry door. This, however, did not exactly go according to plan as it was slightly too thick for the door to fit easily over it when opening, leaving each of us to have to enact our strength to push open the door any time we wanted to enter or exit the house. Since that rug was causing more problems than it was solving at the front door, I decided to move it downstairs and in front of that shelving unit. This proved to be an immensely amazing idea, and not just because it would provide our feet some solace from the cold, hard basement floor but because it also provided me with some high quality entertainment…Shortly after I made this move, our roommate Frank arrived home. Being used to the annoyances of this seemingly innocent rug, he unlocked the door and pushed it open ever so slightly to allow himself to rearrange the contents he was holding. Laying on the couch watching TV, I glance over and observe, not quite prepared for what I was about to witness. Frank rears up, puts his weight behind his push, and forces the door wide open! Normally, this would not even send the door half way open, but much to his surprise the door easily swings all the way. I desperately wish I hadn’t laughed as hard as I did so I could have fake yelled at him for “abusing” the door, but his shocked, frightened reaction was a bit too much for me to handle!

Needless to say, I am quite pleased with the initiation of our little safe zone hidden in the corner of the basement and cannot wait to further improve upon it slowly over the course of time. Keep an eye out for other home adventures soon, we have a lot planned for our long weekend!