Let's hear it for attics!

      As a friend was giving me a tour of her new home, she stopped before opening one door in her basement. "This room is a jammed full mess" she warned. She then talked about the difference between our basement and theirs. "With yours being an unfinished basement, you can put up shelves to store stuff, or at the least stack stuff out of the way. But ours is a finished basement. That means it's suppose to be livable in."
     She then opened the door to the room. She was right. It was totally full. Thing was, it was only a small sized room to start with, designed to hold the furnace, water heater, etc..
     We then got talking about how so many of the newer built homes have lots of wide open spaces, but most don't really have much storage space. Use to be that if a house had a "finished" basement, it was actually that only half of the basement had been 'finished' off. The other half had the laundry area, and the furnace area, and storage area.
     We then questioned why architects and builders had done away with attics. Was it because many viewed them as 'unlivable space'?  Or was it because 'they just seemed to collect stuff'?
     We both agreed that attics were wonderful, highly useful places!
     If you do away with attics, where are future generations going to unearth wonderful antiques?  Where are little girls going to find trunks full of grandma's clothes to play dress up in? Where else would kids be able to unearth the toys from their parents and grand parents youth? Many an attic was a wonderful place full of intrigue and adventure!
     In the mean time, if you have a finished basement, and you don't have an attic, where are you suppose to store a child's clothing, so it can be handed down to the next child in the family? Or their out grown Tonka trucks and Lego toys, that you know your grandchildren are going to enjoy just as much as your kids did, and your definitely not going to want to pay the higher prices for them down the road!
     And then there's all of the 'seasonal' stuff. You know, the Christmas decorations, and the Halloween paraphernalia, and the Easter baskets, and plastic grass and eggs. And any and all other decorating stuff you like to use. It is totally 'the thing' to decorate for any and every occasion and season, and some people even go so far as to have seasonal dishes for each and every one. But where in their house are they suppose to store it?
    So we talked about starting a campaign to promote the return of attics in each and every house!  If we started a Facebook page for it, would the architects and builders pay any attention to it? Didn't really think so. But then again, m-a-y-b-e.....  We decided that the good 'ole method of word of mouth would probably work best. If people started talking up the benefits of attics ... and people having new homes built wanted them incorporated into their design ... And the people whom have them stopped turning them into things other than attics ....  then maybe, just maybe, attics would make a wonderful revival!!!