You heard about one change of plans yesterday, and today I have another for you. This one was a relatively minor change in plans, but it did require a bit of a backtrack, because we were already installing drywall when I decided I wanted to make a change.

Originally in the basement, there was a closet under the stairs. I’m all in favour of closets. This one was a good way to use an awkward space and I had plans to make it a wonderful home for our Christmas decorations. I had nothing against the closet. However, the little alcove at the end of the long room to access the closet always puzzled me a little. What was I going to do with that space?

It took a visit from my youngest sister to open my eyes to the obvious solution. Just square off the room and enlarge the closet slightly. Duh!

So, while drywall installation was underway, I threw on the brakes and demanded that we go back to demo (removing the old doorway into the closet) and construction (framing in a new wall and doorway).

Matt said, “Why does it matter?” and then he just shook his head, sighed and went along.

We had the new doorway framed up in about an hour and drywalled it in one more. We moved the light inside the closet–with only one bleeding bent backwards fingernail (ow!)–so that we could install shelves along the whole back wall. And now we have a nice rectangular room with a very large functional closet.

The new straight wall in the long room. Old wall on the left. New doorway on the right.

Looking at my new straight wall makes me happy. This may seem like a minor change, but it’s one of the things that makes the basement exactly what I want, and is part of the reason I’m able to say that this renovation is turning out even better than I imagined. Isn’t it nice when reality matches up to imagination?