Mysterious basements

Fellow blogger Jaz from October Farm has recently blogged a series of posts about her "ugly" basement and all the stuff that is in it. This made me think of the basements I experienced in my life: mainly the one of my grandmother's house, which I blogged about extensively here and the one of my parents' house, where was/is my bedroom.  The basement in many houses is basically a clutter room, but at home it was and is big enough to be a floor of its own (and i know in architecture technically the basement is not a "floor" but there you go). We had many rooms in it, including the living room where the TV was, the table where we played D&Dr, by a fairly large library, a computer room, a tool room, my own bedroom and at least two storage rooms: one with a freezer and a wine cellar, another one, the "cold room", divided into two sub-rooms, one for other food (during Christmastime especially) and drinks and one mainly for logs for the fireplaces.

The basement in my parents' place is much bigger than the basement in my grandmother's house was, but it was not as mysterious: there was no "secret passage" in it. Nevertheless, it had/has its fair share of mystery: the cold room which we did not have the right to spend time in as children because it had to stay cold all year long and we could not keep the door open had all the mystery of forbidden places, the fireplace was made of rough stones and looked primitive, as if it belonged to another age (in our make belief games it was often the entry of a dragon's cave, or a castle) and well, there were plenty of old stuff, old books and memorabilia to feed our imagination We spent many rainy days, cold days, heatwave days in the basement without being bored. So I have a fondness for basements and what we can discover in them.

Question existentielle (237)

En écrivant ce billet mercredi, il m'est venu une question existentielle:

-Quel est l'endroit idéal pour avoir sa chambre dans une maison, le sous-sol ou le grenier?

A place to blog

I post a blog post from time to time about blogging, a sort of mise en abyme. I blog in a flat set in the attic floor, where I live, mostly in the living room, although sometimes in the bedroom, like I am doing now. I know I shouldn't, but I find it quieter. When I am in my parents' home, I blog in the basement. I think overall I prefer attic rooms, I find them more inspiring, as if they were the thinking head of the building, gathering heat as much as thoughts. And you, where do you blog?

A house in Arvida and childhood memories

I have no idea when this picture was taken. It was send to me by my dad, among others pictures from various. This is my grandmother's house, on my mother's side, in Arvida. It is how it looks now, so it is different than in my memory (which may be faulty). We spent many, many weekends and family celebrations there, when I was a child. I felt a rush of nostalgia looking at it.

This house was in our make-believe games a haunted house, a hotel resort full of spies (there was a gigantic, old broken radio that was supposed to be our radio-emitter), a manor, a badguy's headquarter, a medieval castle, etc. There was a "secret passage" with a "secret door" in the basement, basically a small space pass the boiler underneath the staircase leading to the basement, where my grandmother was putting the soft drinks (often local brands), chocolates and chips (Yum Yum). This secret passage became a secret passage in a haunted house, or the entrance of a cave, and so on. Since my cousin published his book on Arvida and since I read it, I revisit the place in my memory. Make-believe games (such as this one) were an important part of my childhood, so I associate the places with them. Of this house, I also remember the garage full of ice hockey trophies my grandfather won and the old typewriter in the basement. And many board games we never played. So I thought I would blog about it tonight. It's also an excuse to upload the picture of a lovely house.

Du sous-sol au grenier

Comme je l'ai déjà dit, notre appartement est situé au grenier. J'ai déjà dit, à diverses reprises, que j'aime vivre dans un grenier. Les angles singuliers lui donnent un charme indéniable. L'hiver, quand il fait froid, le grenier conserve la chaleur de tout l'édifice, ce qui le transforme littéralement en nid douillet. Cela dit, l'été est arrivé, c'est aujourd'hui la journée la plus chaude de l'année, alors notre appartement devient un four, au mieux un sauna en hauteur. J'exagère un peu: tant qu'on garde les fenêtre ouvertes, c'est supportable. Mais il fait déjà chaud et l'été est jeune.

Quand j'étais enfant, mes frères et moi passions les nuits chaudes de l'été à dormir au sous-sol. C'était pour nous une sorte de camping souterrain. J'ai ensuite eu ma chambre au sous-sol, alors je n'ai plus souffert, enfin je n'ai plus trop souffert de la chaleur estivale jusqu'à mes vingt ans. À Montréal, j'ai vécu dans un appartement sans air climatisé pendant quelques années, jusqu'à ce que la générosité de mes parents (et leurs fréquents voyages dans la métropole) corrige cet état de fait. Cela dit, maintenant je ne vis plus dans le luxe et l'abondance de la société nord-américaine, ni même dans le sous-sol qui me gardait si bien au frais. Je ne sais pas trop comment je vais vivre les jours de canicule qu'on nous promet. Il faudra me trouver une piscine, ou un nouveau sous-sol.