My parents’ home was built in the early twentieth century and included an unfinished half basement. I remember being somewhat frightened of it as a child; the concrete floor and walls, the bare floor joists instead of ceiling, the single bare bulb in the center of the room that required you to walk into the darkness to find the pull chain before you could turn it on. Perhaps even scarier was leaving the room, when you had to turn out the light, turn your back to the big, open, dark room and make your way out again.

Today I would give anything for a basement like that. Newer houses, at least in my state, do not have basements. At least not like that. We have a split level home, with the lower floor partly below ground level, but not a storage basement like my parents had. I never really appreciated all that space they had until I started trying to build up food storage of my own.

We’ve had to get more creative. There is room in the garage, but it’s not the most ideal facility. It gets far too hot in the summer, and is difficult to get around in when we park both cars inside. We converted the closet under the stairs to food storage, but it is cramped, dark, and attracts mice too easily. We have storage under our beds and on top of cupboards. We even put storage cabinets in our master bedroom. And it’s not enough.

A basement would make all of it so much easier. I’ve heard of a company in town that builds basements underneath existing houses. I imagine it’s possible to add a storage basement underneath the ground level of our house. I also imagine it’s fairly expensive. With the current state of the economy it may well be a long time before we see that kind of money again.

So for now I suppose we have little choice but to get creative in finding ways to overcome the lack of storage space in our home’s design. Hmmm… What if we placed our bed up on top of a large cabinet? Weren’t beds you need a stool to climb into all the rage a few years ago?