September 2026 – Reclaiming my Living Room

September 2026 started terrifyingly for me and my family. She is OK now but my mom had a very scary couple of days. She text me one morning that she wasn’t feeling well and not two hours later I got a call from the emergency room that they were life flighting her to another city. My mom never smoked, was never over weight, was always active, always ate pretty well and didn’t drink much either. Regardless she has fought and survived 3 bouts of cancer over the last 25 years, the last one was not even a year ago. The first cancer treatments damaged her heart so she has a pace maker as well.

What happened was that she had a kidney infection that went from 0 to sepsis in all of just a few hours and sent her weak heart into a jazz rendition. Her pacemaker didn’t do what it was supposed to do so they had to shock my poor mom twice before flying her via helicopter to a bigger hospital.

I left her and went home that night (it was in a city about an hour from me) because she was up and, though weak, seemed OK, lucid and her guy was going to stay with her all night. Early the next morning she felt fine enough to tell him to go home and take a shower and not even an hour later we were getting calls that her oxygen dropped, she was crashing and they were going to intubate her.

That whole drive from hell alone I just kept thinking that I might never get to talk to my mom again.

I got to her room and outside, in the hall, I heard her laughing and talking.

They didn’t need to intubate her. I lost it.

And that was enough excitement for all of us forever thank you very much!

It was rough for her there for awhile but just a few days later she was home. Still weak, of course, but doing OK. It was all caused by a small kidney stone that they will be removing once she’s stronger and feeling better. We all told her that if she has so much as a hang nail from now on she’s going directly to the clinic.

On the farm front I’m hitting the wall I always do this time of year and am ready to not have to make another jar of pickles or eat another cucumber. September 2026, like all Septembers for us here in northern MN, means the winding down of our gardens. And after these last three months, 10 pounds of cucumbers and at least 7 pounds of tomatoes (not to mention a boat load of other squashes and veggies) I’m just fine with autumn arriving.

September really turned cold for us this year so I’m really hoping we’ll have a warm October and long fall.

My dad has been staying with me the last few weeks waiting for his place to be finished for him.

Its been… interesting.

He figured it out immediately that my hour in the morning before work with no noise or anyone speaking to me is none negotiable. For my dad (and I think its very common for someone of his generation) the TV is pretty much always on so that’s something he’s had to change a bit. The only time my TV was ever on is when someone would visit and we’d watch something together.

I absolutely cannot abide a TV on 24 hours a day… I just can’t do it!

Fortunately he often plays Fortnite on his Playstation with little to no volume most of the time and that I can handle.

The daily Iraqi war and Trump updates however… not so much.

I really wish he would use the TV in the guest bedroom but his bad back won’t let him sit in bed for any amount of time and the chair in there I guess is not nearly as comfortable as my couch and the TV is a little bit smaller…

I’m gonna look back and feel bad for being annoyed at all but I’m also trying to have grace with myself. After the scare we just had with my mom I know I’m going to be really glad one day that I had these days with my dad here…

But must the man talk all of the time?!

And how many times have I mentioned here just how badly I need to get down to my basement and finish that apartment?! At least a hundred times over the last decade!

My procrastination comes back to bite me in the ass yet again! I would gladly have my dad here in that capacity so we could still look out for each other but also have our own separate spaces.

He knows how important this blog is to me (not to mention just working on this house is what keeps me sane) and he knows I have a ton of plans in the basement. Firstly, it is pretty rough so I would feel bad if he was living down there as it is anyway and secondly, that is pretty thoughtful of him as he is trying not to get in my way or put me out as much as possible.

But it is so totally time to get my basement done!

I love him but I must reclaim my living room from my dad!

I already have the new faucets for the sinks and all new lights on hand already. I even have a cute little fan to replace that obnoxious chandelier. I was going to uncover the window that’s down there but that can wait and it wouldn’t add any natural light to the space anyway.

I haven’t done a damn thing down there because apparently I just don’t like the space and I’m sure I’m like most people as in I have a lot of trouble putting effort into things that I’m not happy with. Its taken me a long time to figure out what my problem was…

The banged up white walls down there paired with the open ceilings makes it feel unfinished and dingy to me.

Those walls need paint and the whole space needs color!

It also needs some softness so I’m going to check in at a local carpet company and see what it might cost to get a remnant to cover the main living area. Fortunately, in the nearly 15 years I’ve lived here, I’ve never once had a water or dampness problem in the basement.

Paint, new faucets, new lights and a new fan won’t take me more than a couple of days and will leave me with just the kitchen to tackle. And I already have all that purchased besides the paint!

Now, brace yourselves, here is my inspiration.

Yes Halloween is my favorite holiday no I do not plan on painting the basement quite that jack o-lantern orange but those inspiration pics are pretty close. The color I’m imagining is going to have more red and brown in it. I’m looking for a bonfire feeling.

The space is always going to be a dark basement my goal is to take it from unfinished gloomy to a warm and cozy retreat.

The kitchen plans I previously posted are changing now too of course. I was so weirdly stuck on keeping this place black and white I now suddenly have color options. No more white and black cabinets. Instead, I’m bouncing around between an olive green, a warm wheat or a smoky gray blue which I think will all go really well with the wall color.

And the backsplash isn’t going to be white anymore either. With all this lovely color around I can do something different there too. I’m considering a backsplash that looks like copper ceiling tile and will be very similar to the wall color and easy to clean.

As one of you awesome ladies suggested I’ll be shifting the upper cabinets down so I can install a ventless range hood above the stove for light and air flow. (I will absolutely be putting a light above the sink as well.)

Great idea!

You guys also talked me out of getting rid of the big double sink for washing but that left me with no counter space. So I brought my old island down here and solved that problem as well as adding even more storage.

That really worked out! I love my island and its been sitting in my garage for years. (This is my post all about it: How I built an island out of my great grandpa’s radio stand.)

It needs some work though! Lodi broke the butcher block top several times (I’m fortunate that he didn’t destroy the whole thing and no, I have no idea what my island ever did to him) so it needs a new top and it also deserves a new paint job as well. I’ll either paint it black, the color of the cabinets or the burnt orange of the wall color.

Not sure yet but I’m actually leaning toward black.

I’m going to take the doors off the big upper cabinet first so its lighter to move. (It looks like at least two cabinets but its actually just one big piece that my Grandpa built for their kitchen upstairs in the 1950s.) Then I’ll clean the doors and paint them before putting them back on.

Many of you suggested leaving them off to make the space feel more open but I’m already going to be adding open shelving on the back wall beside the refrigerator and in the newly opened up space above the sink.

I’m also lazy – if I don’t have to paint the interior of those cabinets I’m just going to clean them really well and move on with my life.

The plan to replace the two lights in the kitchen is still in place and I have those pendants already too so I’ll just need to purchase shades for them. OOF that’s TEN new lights for me to install and a fan! Actually I’m going to start with four lights in the main living space, its very likely that will be plenty so I won’t bother installing four more.

Why on earth are there eight lights in such a small space? I was going for the look of recessed lights on a very very poor man’s budget. All of the lights down there now are just basic sockets that I purchased for $1 and used Edison bulbs.

The open shelf beside the refrigerator will give a spot for the microwave (and a toaster beside it too) and I can just run the power cord behind the refrigerator so it will take very little to get it off of its current perch.

I’d planned before to put the microwave above the stove or sink which would have required me to add an outlet.

This will be less work and just as good.

It will also hide the hole in the wall that I still need semi access to as behind that hole is the water cut off between my house’s water and my outdoor spigot up by my garden. That’s gonna leave me a ton of space above the refrigerator that I may, at some point, add shelving to for long term storage.

Speaking of outlets and saving myself the installation of yet another one. My ceilings are open, covered in cords and painted black. Another cord will not effect the aesthetic lol. So, I purchased this outlet converter that screws into a light socket. When I install the new vent hood (that comes with a cord kit) I’ll just run a black cord (like all the others…) across the ceiling and plug it in.

YAY for finding safe, up to code and way easier short cuts!

Like with so many things in this space I’ve also already purchased everything I need to convert my DIY rolling doors to regular swinging doors. So, though it isn’t needed for dad to move in down here, I might as well get that done too.

I even have ALL of the hardware I need to put up a ton of open shelving!

And all of the new knobs for the kitchen cabinets as well!

September 2026 apparently I was convinced that if I had everything I needed it would kick start me into getting to work down here. Obviously that didn’t work lol but its great to have everything now that I’m finally working on it.

Here is my color struggle. The orange is the wall color I’m leaning toward and the blues/ greens are the colors I’m looking at for the kitchen cabinets. At first I thought green was it but now I’m leaning toward a blue because the green feels a little like Christmas when paired with the orange. I certainly didn’t want it to feel like Halloween down there but Christmas isn’t the look I’m going for either!

How about we just don’t have a holiday theme at all?

There is a chance I’m going to decide this is all much too much and head back to the color table for a light wheat/ butter/ straw color for the kitchen cabinets instead.

What do you guys think?