Before & After-Basement — The Mama Bear Monologue

Ian was originally diagnosed with brain tumors in July of 2019. This is never a boat you want to be in, but if you have to be, you want the diagnosis to be low-grade. Thankfully, this was the case for Ian. Because of this, we were able to monitor without having to immediately use chemotherapy. And when Ian did need to start chemotherapy, we didn’t have to attack it aggressively. Which also meant we didn’t have to be inpatient during this time.

Ian qualified for a wish from Make-A-Wish the day he was diagnosed. For me, personally, making a wish felt like a death sentence. It sounds silly to say now, but that was how I felt back then. I had only known wishes to be for kids who were very, very sick. Terminally ill. I had an extremely hard time coming to terms with that as our new reality.

By the time I did, I wanted to wait for the “perfect” time. I wanted to wait until Ian wasn’t on chemo and wasn’t immunocompromised. Then I wanted to wait until he had time to recover from it once the treatment plan ended. Next thing I knew, it was September 2022. And we would soon come to find that there’s never a perfect time for anything.

After Ian’s tumor hemorrhaged, social work helped us get in contact with Make-A-Wish. By the time we talked to them, Ian was out of the main hospital, but was still in inpatient rehab, relearning how to do pretty much everything. At the time we met with them, we had no idea what Ian’s diagnosis would be. Our doctors thought malignant at first due to how fast it had grown and then the hemorrhage. When the neurosurgeon actually did the removal/biopsy, she had stated that preliminary came back low-grade, but we were still cautioned to wait for the actual results, as these can be wrong. We were so relieved to hear that it wasn’t obviously malignant, and for the first time in weeks, had some hope to hold on to. We were expecting the worst up until that moment.

After all was said and done, after finding out that Ian’s tumors were still low-grade, after talking with our volunteers at Make-A-Wish, it was decided that Ian’s wish to turn our basement into a playroom/theatre room would soon come true!

We asked Make-A-Wish to supply the furniture and decor. My husband and I decided to do the cosmetic work ourselves (but I have to add in we also had help from family and friends!)

Before: We had wood paneling walls, tile flooring, Styrofoam ceiling tile that started falling down, and old couches we had gotten when we moved into our apartment, nearly 10 years beforehand.

After: Decor and furniture was taken out. Ceiling tiles came down, my husband redid the electrical work and changed out the light fixtures and light switches. We sanded down the wood panel walls to make them smooth. Next, we used primer on the walls and trim. Then, we painted the walls a beautiful blue color called Champion Blue. This is significant because we made a hashtag for Ian’s story: #ChampIan -it was perfect. After painting the walls and trim, we had to figure out the floor situation. When there are days of significant rainfall, we do get a little bit of water in our basement. I’m talking a couple little streams that run down into a drain that was placed to give the water somewhere to go. While not significant enough to do damage with what we had down there before, we didn’t want to put anything down there that would get water damage, like carpet. The floor file is also believed to be asbestos, so we didn’t want to tear it up. Our solution (for the time being)- red guard. Red guard helps to create a waterproof barrier and reduce cracks from forming in between the tiles. Once the red guard was painted on the floor, we applied floor paint and paint chips to help cover up the imperfections from the floor. (And let’s face it- we have kids, things are going to get messy!!)

And of course to throw it all together, the basement isn’t complete without furniture and decor to really turn it into a beautiful space for both of our children, who endured so much this year. They deserve this.

The kids have absolutely loved this new space. Our oldest already had a sleepover and this is where they hung out. And Ian has loved having this space to play and watch his favorite movies!

I hope you enjoyed these before and after photos! Stay tuned for more DIY projects in the future!