my sister's visit.

one of the best parts of thanksgiving was having family stay with us.  we love it.  and hopefully they do too.  it's not very often our families fly out this way to visit, so when we have family in town, we are stoked.  this morning was a bit bittersweet since we just said goodbye to a.'s parents, but my little sister madeline is still here celebrating the holiday.  and celebrate we will.

one of the challenges of our home is that it's small.  scratch that.  our home is perfect for the two of us, but when you add other people into the mix, the house get's crowded fast.  you see, we live in a two bedroom, two bath townhouse.  and we love it.  the spare bedroom operates mainly as an office and doubles as a guest room (gotta love a pull out couch) when necessary.  in this case, the guest bed was reserved for a.'s folks.  and i wasn't about to have my little sis live on the couch for a week.

a. and i have been talking about finishing the basement for some time. it's a daunting task, but with madeline coming to visit, we knew it needed to get done.  only, we didn't start early enough.  basically we framed two of the four walls before madeline arrived in town.  so we had to get creative.  and creative we were.

using found objects from around our house, a. and i crafted a cozy little space in a basement for madeline's stay.  we pulled out our old guest bed (it retired once we found the pull-out couch) and set that up over large blankets that served as rugs.  for a head board, we opted to use a large cut-out sign that we used for a friend's 30th.  we thinks it totally makes the room.

to create walls, we took old curtains and stapled them around the perimeters of the space.  the soft look actually turned out quite nice and while it didn't do much to muffle the sounds of running water, the heater or sump pump, it did keep our daunting piles o' crap hidden.

since madeline is working from our house next week, we also wanted to create a quiet work space for her to use.  so we pilfered an old table, lamp and plant to make her her very own "office."  all said and done, we are really proud of this little space.  & while you won't find this on hgtv (unless it's for a before picture), it really made our little house the perfect size for a group of five.

so there you have it.  the perfect make-shift room.  because nothing is too good for my sis.

side-note: we'll be continuing the basement remodel this weekend and next week.  we hope to have everything completed before christmas.