Reno (Or Should I Say Demo?) by Pink P

When you become a parent, you develop a supersonic sense of hearing. From two rooms away, you can tell which kid is playing with which toy or whether the thud you heard was someone's head or a book. That's why when I heard a crash larger and louder than any I'd heard before, my instinct was to run downstairs to see what was wrong.

Pink and Stow were playing together so nicely, though, and since I didn't hear any yelling or crying, I decided it was just my imagination (Parenting Pro-tip: It's never just your imagination).

Fifteen (fifteen!!) minutes later Pink came to me and calmly said, "I think I made a bad choice." This was a whole new and slightly disorienting tactic for her.

"Why?" I asked.

"I was trying to reach a toy and the shelf fell," she replied just a tad too nonchalantly. Pink doesn't do nonchalant. Ever.

"Which shelf?" I asked, though thinking back to the large crash, I already knew the answer.

"Don't worry," she assured me. "It landed on something sturdy."

*****

Before we moved into our current house, we finished the basement.

It went from this:

to a space that includes a bedroom, a bathroom, a play room, and a "media" room. While I appreciate the extra space and (most importantly) the fact that the kids can GO DOWNSTAIRS TO PLAY, what I love more than anything is the playroom closet. When we were designing the space, the contractor came up with a conservative little 5 ft x 5 ft closet tucked away around and beneath the stairs. "That's nice," I said. "But it needs to be bigger."

See, I envisioned a closet so big that not only would it hide each and every toy in our house, but it would also provide storage for all of our seasonal items. I imagined a magical world free of toys in which I no longer had to climb down cellar stairs (or up attic stairs) to unbury boxes of holiday decorations. In other words, I imagined heaven on earth. It took a second opinion and  a different contractor to get what I dreamed of--a glorious 6 ft x 12 ft closet running the length of the room. When the basement was finished, the sight of the new closet brought tears of joy to my eyes (NOTE: I am only being slightly hyperbolic here; I mean a person can only take so much toe-stubbing and cellar digging before she's reached her breaking point).

The kids immediately took to the space:

The first day, begging to camp out.

Soon the closet was full of all the junk I imagined it would hold and more.

And everything was perfect.

That is, until Pink decided to try her hand at demolition. The good news is that no one was hurt and nothing on the shelf was destroyed. The bad news is that she pulled an 8-foot wire shelf out of the wall.

In case you're wondering, I questioned the contractor about the strength and stability of a shelf this long especially given its proximity to the ground, and he assured me it would be safe. Yeah, right.

Pink is the kind of kid who weeps when someone looks at her sideways, and who tends to overreact to everything. But, she did not make a peep when this monster of a shelf came out of the wall, bringing with it toys and Christmas decorations. This may turn out to be one of the greatest mysteries of my life.

*****

The detached shelf left us with 20 perfectly aligned little holes just like this one.

Ren and I have our skills--his being, by and large, more useful than mine--but neither of us had ever patched a wall before. That's the joy of having children, though. You always have opportunities for skill development and personal growth.  

After Ren was finished, we had a wall full of awkwardly-shaped (but perfectly aligned) blots of spackle.

Fortunately, most of the spackle spots were soon covered by the various storage containers that now fit nicely where the shelf once hung.

It turns out that Pink P's forced shelf removal may have been a stroke of genius. More things fit in the closet now, and now there is no tempting dangerous shelf for the kids to climb.

Need storage solutions for the holidays? We've got a nice 8-foot shelf to spare, and we're thinking about renting out Pink P's renovation and reorganization services. Who knows, maybe things will work out as well for you as they did for us. Then again, maybe they won't. After all, not knowing is half the fun.