How to Create a Real “baby Cave”
I live in a twin house in East Pennsylvania that was built in 1925. It has a lot of charm, but few other things like living space, storage room, and number of bathrooms. As my son grew older and the pastime changed from having to constantly hang out (“Let’s remember to share! ”) Towards more hands-off, we struggled to find a place for him to hang out with our friends.
They played in his bedroom for a while, but we don’t allow him to have a TV in his room yet, so as soon as they wanted to play video games or relax with a snack and watch a movie, they returned to our room. a living room that is both small and next to ours, also small, dining room / kitchen, which means that we will all be on top of each other.
After a rainy summer and fall that resulted in some water damage to my 93-year-old unfinished basement, I was faced with a large (read: costly) “waterproof” project that included installing a sump pump and slightly nicer (but still unfinished) walls. It occurred to me that with lighter walls, small furniture, an old TV, and perhaps a fluffy rug, I could turn part of the basement into a small play / lounge for my son and his friends. I named my new vision “Children’s Cave”.
In the fall, I started cleaning and selling in my basement anything that didn’t make me “happy” (or I hadn’t used for five years, which was often the same).
Then four people came in and created the biggest mess I have ever had the pleasure of cleaning up:
Then I started looking for a way to decorate the space to make it look whimsical and warm in winter. I also needed a way to separate the “cave” from the other half of the basement, which is the warehouse and laundry room. Oh, and I didn’t want to spend a lot of money. He got a couple of posters and a Children’s Cave sign for Christmas, so I knew they were going to hang the walls. And we were planning to upgrade our main TV to make the old TV his. But otherwise, I basically started from scratch.
We pulled an old cable over wooden beams and hung two shower curtains to block out another part of the basement. I spent the most money on this fluffy rug so fluffy and wonderful it was worth every penny. The main basement rug is quite thin and rests on the concrete floor, so something softer was key.
But my favorite item – and the one I admired the most from my son – was this huge and strangely realistic cardboard cutout of two stormtroopers:
They are useful (guarding the sump), they are impressively tall, and for the first weeks or two after I bought them, I was a little out of breath every time I turned towards them with a load of laundry in my hands.
We then put the old TV on the dresser that we no longer use, which is also the perfect place to store his video games:
Finishing touch? A pair of blankets and emoji pillows:
The poop emoji pillows, in particular, were worth every penny because every time a new friend comes to my son and leads him downstairs, he says, “Just to warn you: I pooped on the couch. Twice.”
My son now has a fun place to hang out with friends, they are close enough so that we can hear that they are (mostly) doing well and we can free up the living room and watch the new TV.
Here’s everything I bought for Kid Cave:
- Blue fluffy rug
- Emoji pillows
- Minecraft shower curtains
- Cardboard stormtroopers
- Children’s cave sign
- Mario poster
- Han & Chewie Poster
- A green folding snack table that I personally bought and cannot find on the internet, but very similar to this one