As most things do with me and the house, the ideas come to me (or rather the decision comes to me) over the tiniest thing. Like the start of cold weather. Cold weather means space heaters. And well my husband has a thing for space heaters. Every morning before the sun rises Matt and Dom pad down to the basement and lay themselves directly in front of that thing on full blast. All in the wee hours of the morn before the rest of us even wake up... Space. Heater. Best just to accept it at this point. The weirdos.
What does this have to do with the gym you ask? Well because our little work out area of the basement was being overrun with legos and blankets and pillows that I would need to work my way around just to find my weights. Or my bench. Each and every morning. Not to mention blankets by a heater isn't safe. Matt! Now Matt has suggested this before, switching the work out area to the play area of the basement and I just always said no. Emphatically. I liked the kids being able to use that space while we were watching a movie, sort of out of the way but still visible. But the kicker is, they don't! They bring their toys to the movie area. Does anyone else have a basement with "areas"? Well we do and there are three of them.
So we (I) decided to finally switch. We have been using more weights as of late and I've been doing more HIIT and yoga..... we just plain needed more space. And speaking of yoga I finally found a mat that can handle all the above and it is this one. I've had it since April and we've been through a lot together and she's still whole!
As you can imagine if you've met my children they do not play gently (understatement of the year). The walls in this area (fine, the entire basement) were all marked up so there was an insane amount of "filling in of holes" to do. Then I decided to repaint that side because I hate the matte finish of the dark blue. And dark color hides spiders. Of which we have far too many! My sister kindly gave us a gallon of gray paint and done it was!
Matt made the frames for the inhale/exhale prints and the poster as well as the handy dandy stability ball holder. I just cannot have my children thinking that it is a toy. I also got this weight stand to organize our little beginner set. I know all you gym bodies are snickering at me but hey! We are starting out in the weight department! And the best part of this whole switcheroo? My kids know no toys can step foot into the gray area. No. Toys.
And the kid's side? Oh well, it's a bit much I'll give you that but it's all there. Their toys. As they get older they use them less and less and I'm sure we will be pairing them down little by little. But this works. For now.
You can see our basement when we first moved in first finished it here.
So what is our little home gym missing? We will probably move our bathroom mirror down there in distant future when we finally redo that room. Again. Maybe someday we will get those gym mats for the floor too... But other than that?
That was a whole lot of reading for just a little home gym but what can I say? I like to work out. Like, a lot.