When I was a little kid (and even today), I was drawn to small spaces. When I was seven, we moved into the house my parents built and my dad said I could be first to choose a bedroom. There were two on one side of the stairs, one on the other side. I chose the smallest one. I loved the closet, which became a fort of sorts…my sister and I would sit in there, pretending to be astronauts, drawing controls on the inside of the closet door, which remain today.
When my own kids were little, each of their rooms had a small eaves closet with a slanting, four-foot ceilings. Because my daughter’s Halloween bee costume was stored in there, we took to calling those eaves closets the beehives. I gave my kids markers, put glow-in-the-dark stars on the walls and ceilings and told them to go to town on decorating. It was cold in the beehives in the winter, and I used to go in there when the kids were at school and lie on the floor covered with old blankets, and stare at the stars. Recently, the Peeper and I played in there, and I wrote his name on the wall, along with all the cousins and friends who’d played there, too.
About a year ago, I eyeballed the space under the cellar stairs, which we used for storage. There’s a wall on one side, then the slanting ceiling, and a 90-degree turn under the landing of the stairs down. “I want to make this a reading nook for the grandchildren,” said I. McIrish was busy renovating our bathroom, then the Princess’s house, so it would have to wait, of course.
Just after Christmas, he got started. Now, when McIrish starts a project, it’s a damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead kind of thing. He is also an acolyte of Norm Abrams from This Old House. Like, he would maybe faint and/or cry if he ever got to meet Norm. So while I had envisioned a humble, cozy little space for the kids, with some squishy floor tiles and a lamp, maybe some paint, he got that faraway look in his eye. Suddenly, he could not live with the exposed cellar ceiling. He’d make a raised floor. “But it’s the cellar,” I said. “It’s just a little cubby, that’s all.”
“No,” said he with a glazed look in his eye. “If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right.” In other words, it would take weeks and weeks, and no expense would be spared. I reminded him that it was a cellar closet, essentially, with beanbag chairs. A reading nook. He ignored me. Hidden strip lighting aimed at the ceiling and walls for “an ambient effect,” new wiring, an antique nautical light he’s been hoarding (sorry, saving) for 33 years. The dragon cave is now ostensibly the nicest room in our house.
We showed the unfinished space to the Peeper, who was concerned at the darkness of it all. “What if dragons come get me?” he asked. “Wouldn’t Cornelius come save you?” I answered. Cornelius is his imaginary friend, a dragon formed by clouds. “Yes! Him would!” the Peeper exclaimed, thus reassured. Thus, the space was named the dragon cave.
I told McIrish I wanted to wallpaper the space. He found some that cost $129 a roll. More than any other wallpaper in our home, in other words. I put my foot down and found some that was $12 a roll. While he was doing his Normish thing, I made the crowning glory of the dragon cave—a tiny house that sits in the wall, complete with ladder to get up and down. I wallpapered (except for the spaces McIrish thought I couldn’t do properly), and then took back the reins by furnishing the space with faux bunny fur rugs, pillows and books.
The Peeper loves the little house and, upon seeing the miniature books in the house, asks me to read them to the porcelain cat and bunny who live in the house. The books are blank inside, which is even better, because we can tell them whatever story we want. There are usually fire engines involve. He brings down his trucks and makes tracks in the soft carpet. We build dinosaur playgrounds. A horse might get stuck in a hole and need to be rescued. Then, we read a book or two.
The Butterfly is not quite crawling yet, so she has only sat in the dragon cave, cooing and gnawing on a dump truck. Soon, though, she'll get the full effect. In years to come, I picture all of my grandchildren playing down there, laughing and making fun of us grownups and bringing Nonnie’s chocolate chip cookies to eat. I myself may go down there with a book one day soon, as cozy as I was when I was seven years old, landing my rocket ship on the moon.
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