Holy shit, I can see the floor
So I've been cleaning my office on and off for the past few days, and it's looking a hell of a lot better.
First of all, I live in a great house (thanks, Mom!). We have enough space to stretch out a bit -- three kids and two adults take up a large amount of real estate. But as someone who works from home, it was equally important to have a good office. One of the things that sold us on this place is that the basement had already been half-finished as a workshop cum bedroom. It was pretty half-assed: Plywood walls, a suspension ceiling that hadn't been finished and half-finished drywall.
There are three problems with having an office in your basement: The lack of natural light, the temperature, and the flooring.
Problem #1 was resolved last year when we finally had the office finished properly. Real, plastered walls painted with Benjamin Moore's best stuff and flourescent lighting provide adequate enough illumination that I no longer ruminate about tricksy hobbitses stealing my preciousss. I've got a temporary solution for #2 thanks to a Toastmaster Heatlog, that casts a surprisingly large amount of heat for the room -- enough to raise it from 55 to 65 by lunch.
It's not the perfect solution -- I'd prefer to have a plumber come in and put a real heating system (we used forced hot water heated by natural gas here), but that'll require an outlay that I probably won't be able to afford until the summer. It'll also mean knocking out part of a wall we just had finished, which doesn't really thrill me either. But the spaceheater works for now, and it'll get me through the winter.
Surprisingly, problem #3 -- the bare concrete floor -- has been the toughest problem to find a solution for.
See, when we first moved here, the room had been covered by carpet remnants stained by numerous pets, so the entire office stank of rancid, mildewy and long-stale cat pee. We pulled the rugs at the same time we had the office redone, but didn't have a new floor put in at the same time, because the flooring I wanted is fucking expensive. We were also incented to wait when it was discovered that the bulkhead leading to the basement had certain structural deficiencies that let rainwater come in in a veritable flood.
The bulkhead has since been replaced, but no flooring has been put down. Fortunately, last weekend, we had a breakthrough -- cheap foam flooring like they put in workshops and garages.
Turns out that Ocean State Job Lot has the stuff in 2x2 jigsaw pieces; 4 packs cost $10, which is a a buck and a half cheaper per square than what K-Mart sells 'em for. So I picked up a dozen, and I liked them so much I managed to finagle another two dozen for the other side of the office.
It's not a shag carpet, but it'll do until I can afford something better.