Powerline vs Long Range Wireless

Okay, so here's the situation:
I'm living in my Mom's basement..  ... and the router is on the second floor, in the opposite corner of the house; about as far away as it can get. She has a Wireless-G router. My wireless (USB) is only Wireless-b. From what I've heard, I would get increased range from upgrading my card, but I'm not sure if it would be enough.
The other option is Powerline. I've been looking into it, seems to have very mixed reviews. The man who owned this house previously did a lot of his own wiring in the basement; all the light switched seem to affect the wrong lights, several outlets don't work, etc - Would this effect the powerline adapter's effectiveness? They cost so much money, if I bought them and they didn't work... grrrr!

So, play let me know what you think I should do. I guess a wireless repeater would be another option.