“Every year, it was the same old thing,” Erica said. “The holidays would roll around and I’d ask Troy what he wanted for Christmas,” she said. “He always said, “I have enough stuff.” She laughed. “And suddenly I realized he was right. Troy has all kinds of stuff. He has so much stuff he has nowhere to keep all his stuff. That’s what gave me the idea of having the basement remodeled as his Christmas gift.”

Many Boston area homes have one trait in common: a serious lack of storage space. Active lifestyles require lots of gear, but we don’t necessarily have the space to keep it! Renovating the basement, which is traditionally a dark, poorly designed, underused space, into a pleasant multi-use room with lots of built in storage is a smart way to increase the comfort and enjoyment we get from our homes.

“We turned out using a good portion of our finished basement as straight up storage,” Erica said. “It’s such a relief to have an actual place to stow stuff like camping gear and his snowboarding stuff – before, we would shift that stuff from closet to closet, sort of room to room, you know? What a hassle!” The remaining space became what the family calls the game room. “We never really planned on this happening, but as soon as we had the space for fun, we started having fun there,” Erica explained. “The kids set up the air hockey table, and after that? It’s really nice to have a place where we just enjoy being together.”