This holiday season, we undertook the process of making our basement look more like an Egyptian tomb. We began by moving all the furniture and sanding the walls down. Once they were flat and smooth, we used a roller to apply a tan water-based paint as a base coat. Then we used a yardstick and T-Square to spec out the grid pattern of stones. It was then up to Gail and Tiffany to paint the walls to look like ancient sandstone. Using sponge paint and a carefully mixed set of colors, they were able to achieve a stone effect complete with cracks and chips in the stone.

The Egyptian columns were to be decorated next, but we found some difficulty in deciding what style to go with, as many of the websites and photos and artist renderings we looked at did not agree with one another. We finally decided on blue, green and red for the top leaves and vertical stripes, and teal, gold and blue for the horizontal stripes. We are currently in the process of drawing and painting the Egyptian figures and hieroglyphs in the spaces we've left blank on the columns.

Now with two mummy cases full of VHS and DVD movies, an Egyptian-ized pool table, sandstone walls, and ornate Egyptian columns, the Egyptian basement is a great collaboration of artistic talent and engineering skill. It was a lot of hard work, but also our favorite gift to ourselves this holiday season.