Secret Rooms

We have a secret room in our basement.   Two actually.   These are areas only accessible through small doors which go into unfinished spaces of the basement.   We have children who are inquisitive, but who also are respectful when we say a place if off limits.

The “hidden” room in the basement I’m surprised the children haven’t investigated yet is beyond the closet under the stairs going down to the basement area.   The, “closet under the stairs” ala Harry Potter, has always been filled with toys for the children.   It’s a big space with lots of shelves.    Over time the shelves have been filled with different toys, games, cards, outdoor toys and things that include lots of small pieces.   The closet is almost always a wreck.

A few times each year I go through the contents to organize, clean and remove toys they’ve outgrown.    When they were younger, the toys on the lower shelves were ones they could play with while the upper shelves contained things we would bring down to use together.    Now that they’re older they can get to anything they want—which sometimes means dumping things from lower shelves so they can get to what’s on the upper ones.  

When my son was very young we had a baby pen we’d prop up against the closet.   We’d put my son into the space and watch him from our office desks, also in the basement, so we could watch him and get work done at the same time.   That’s when we named it, “The Closet Under the Stairs” because he was literally pinned into the space and couldn’t escape.  He never minded as he was in a toy-filled area in sight of us.   He would pull himself up and hold on to the pen and babble at us while he dropped toys over the edge to get our attention.

Right now the closet is definitely due for a cleaning.   I don’t think you could walk on the floor if you tried due to the colossal mess of toy pieces everywhere.    This mess doesn’t seem to bother the children.   It only bothers me if I look inside.   One of the things they’ve never really noticed is the flat door at the lowest point in the back of the closet.   When they were younger I blocked the door with a stool so they wouldn’t discover it by accident.   Today it’s partially covered with a box of toys.  

But it’s only a matter of time before they discover it.   I’m not overly worried if they do at this age—it’s a small space with a carpet remnant on the poured concrete floor and is filled in part with the sub woofer for the surround sound system.  

I’m wondering when they’ll find it and if they’ll come to let me know when they do—or if they’ll use it as a hiding place for hide and seek games or other “treasures”.  

The other secret room isn’t something they can get to, but it’s my favorite secret space in the house.   In the small hallway going to the basement bedroom there is a wall with some decorative trim work.   We had our trim carpenter make the wall look like a giant door, sans door knob.   The top section of the pretend door can be reached with a small ladder.   If you grab the top section just so and pull, it comes off, revealing the entrance to the house’s encapsulated crawl space.  

I had Wayne, our trim carpenter, conceal the entrance for aesthetic sake.  Once open you can climb up the ladder, turn on the light bulb and enter the hidden space below the front half of the house.   It’s not that exciting as an adult what with duct work and one of the HVAC systems inside, but I wonder if it would be exciting to a child?  I know when I was little any space that was secret was a mystery to me.  

We have some other “secret” spaces on the second floor with small doors, as required by code, they haven’t figured out about yet as well.    They’re getting older, I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time until they do.

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Rock Climbing Schedule:  Tomorrow for Memorial Day we’re sending both my son and daughter to rock climbing camp.   My son has been before multiple times, including for a birthday party, but his sister has been for week-long camps since that time.   I’m hoping they both have a good time tomorrow, but I also hope he doesn’t gauge his success based on his sister’s additional experience.   He’s looking forward to the day tomorrow; I hope he’s still as enthusiastic when we pick him up.