The Beauty of the Basement
THE MILLENNIAL UNDERGROUND: PART 5
Things we’ve come to love about living in our suite
As I write this, Vancouver just suffered through a record-breaking heatwave. While I grew up with 100°+ temperatures in California, Vancouver just isn’t prepared for it. The most common topic of small talk right now is asking people how they survived the infamous heat dome. Our answer?
We sure are glad we live in a basement!
This is not a usual sentence I say. But it’s gotten me thinking about the benefits of living in our suite — benefits I too often allow to be overshadowed by our literal lack of sunlight:
It limits our stuff
Despite my tendency to moan about our lack of space, I actually appreciate the way our basement limits how much stuff we can have. It helps us keep clutter down and thoughtfully consider what we have room for (all while giving me an excuse to be completely addicted to our neighborhood ‘Buy Nothing’ group).
It keeps our expectations low
When we moved into this space from our previous apartment, our minds were blown. A second bedroom! A non-galley kitchen! In-suite laundry! A dishwasher! These small upgrades meant the world to us. Now, I feel set up for a lifetime of smaller living and contained expectations (which it appears we will need, as house prices skyrocket everywhere we’d consider moving). We aren’t looking for luxury; all we need for our next move is 8-foot ceilings.
We have a lot less to think about
Yard work? Nope! Home repairs? Nope! Maintaining gadgets and grown up toys we have no space for? Big nope! This has to be the number one benefit of renting: less space, less stuff = more time, more mental freedom. I love spending my weekends not weeding.
It makes other dreams and priorities possible
At the end of the day, basements are a reasonably affordable option in an outrageously expensive city. Choosing to stay in one for so long, as opposed to devoting a much higher proportion of our income to housing, has given us the financial flexibility to make decisions based on other values aside from “making as much money as we can.” For example, not being tied to a higher rent or mortgage allowed me to leave my high-paying job late last year to start a freelance business and have more flexibility for our young children. It’s allowing me to fulfill a long-held dream of going to grad school this fall. It’s given us the flexibility to travel locally with our family and, perhaps most importantly, put some money aside to hopefully purchase a home one day.
Of course, this is not the situation for many people who live in basement suites. The costs of these units are skyrocketing, just like all the other housing in the city. Many renters aren’t making a conscious choice to spend slightly less on housing — they are stretching themselves just to make it underground. So, let me say it again: affordable housing should not be a privilege. It’s a human right.
It lets us live the Vancouver lifestyle
What we sacrifice in our living space is mostly made up for by the joys of living in a city like Vancouver: the restaurants, the beaches, the culture. Hearing 10 different languages on the walk to our park. The neighborhood school within walking distance. Such good coffee culture, Starbucks keeps having to close its locations. Vancouver is an incredible city, and it gets to be ours, just for a little bit longer, thanks to the basement suite.
Living in the city is also important to us for a practical reason: we have city-based jobs. When I was working at the local university, even living in the city my commute was 40 minutes minimum (Joel still works there). Commuting from the suburbs is a soul-sucking, life-draining choice far too many people are forced to make because of housing, especially since commuting is terrible for both health and happiness.
It connects us with other basement dwellers
Lots of our neighbours, many of whom have come to Vancouver from around the world, live in basement suites. As white, English-speaking North Americans, living in a basement suite takes away one layer of difference between us and our neighbours. While we daydream about being one of the feudal lords of Vancouver (our wonderful landlord excepted, of course), we figure if we have to be underground, we’re in good company.
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This is part five of a six part series about living underground in Vancouver, BC. If you like this story, give it a clap or two below!
- Part 1: Life in a basement suite: an introduction
- Part 2: What you might find when rental hunting in Vancouver, 2016
- Part 3: Are basement suites good enough for Canadian families?
- Part 4: Seven tips for living well in a small space
- Part 5: The beauty of the basement
- Part 6: “Why don’t you just move?”
- Bonus Update: Emerging from the Underground
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