How To Turn Your Basement Into A Living Space
You’re in need of an extra room, whether a bedroom, a family room, or a home gym. At the same time, your basement is a complete mess and you can’t really utilize it for anything useful.
Clearly, what you should do is invest in your basement in order to add some precious size to your home.
Remodeling your basement will come with its own set of challenges, especially because of its location. Don’t let that discourage you, though. Plenty of people have successfully transformed their basements, and you can do it too.
Ample planning, preparation, and managing your expectations are key to avoid getting overwhelmed and giving up on your project. Also, take these experts’ practical advice on basement remodeling to help get ready for the work ahead of you.
By remodeling it, you’ll be able to make the best of it and turn it into amazing living space. If you’re wondering how, take a look at these tips.
1. Give It Purpose
This basically means that you should choose what you want to turn your basement into. Depending on its size, it doesn’t have to be just one room, but even if it is, you should carefully consider which one it will be.
For example, do one of your kids needs a separate bedroom? Do they need a playroom or a home cinema? Perhaps you could benefit from a full-size living room.
Once you determine the future purpose of your basement, consider the furniture you’ll need to bring in to make it fully functional and the size of the space you’ll need to make it happen.
If you’re turning your basement into a bedroom, you might also want to install an adjacent bathroom to create a perfect guestroom. Plus, if you add a small kitchen, it will become a whole guest suite.
The possibilities are numerous, you just need to figure out what your priorities are when it comes to the extra space you’re getting.
2. Make Your Staircase Safe And Beautiful
If you have a basement, you must also already have stairs leading down to it. However, having decided to renovate the basement, you shouldn’t leave your staircase worn-out, unsafe and unattractive.
When it comes to upgrading it, you should definitely talk to a building inspector and find out what the codes for staircase configurations are and how you can best meet them.
Maybe you’ll have to move the stairs to a more convenient part of your basement, so an architect or a designer’s opinion might come in handy and help you decide how to act. Make sure you tell these experts about your plans with the space, so that the staircase is in perfect coordination with the rest of the room design.
3. Install Good Flooring
Most basement floors are made of concrete, which may not look very appealing, but certainly has its good sides. One of them is that concrete allows you to place most of the popular flooring options on the market on top of it, which will make your life much easier when remodeling your basement.
Make sure that the concrete is flat, for which you should use the best concrete tools you can get your hands on, and then cover it with flooring of your choice. However, one thing you should avoid is solid wood flooring.
It may be a great choice for the rest of your home, but you may encounter some unstable humidity levels in your basement, which can cause wood flooring expand and shrink, damaging it in the process. Instead, choose vinyl planks or tiles, laminate or even a wall-to-wall carpet for extra coziness.
4. Finish The Ceiling
When it comes to basement ceiling, many people decide on the suspended or drop ceiling. This is a good way to hide all those pipes, ductwork and other mechanical components essential for the normal functioning of the household.
However, there is a downside to this type of solution. A drop ceiling will make the space smaller by lowering the height of the room, and not everybody agrees that it even looks good. So, instead, you can choose to conceal the wirework, pipes and all the rest with paneling or drywall.
Finally, there’s the third option, the one where you simply leave them exposed, but paint them using a sprayer. This way you can even choose the color of the paint, so that the space appears brighter and larger.
It might sound strange, but exposed pipes and wiring are one of the main features of modern industrial design, which has been increasingly popular for years now.
Add a concrete or bare brick wall, some metallic lighting fixtures and a piece or two of vintage furniture to the equation and you’ll get an amazing contemporary living space you’ll be proud to show off.
5. Consider Ventilation
A fair-sized window in your basement would be great for more than one reason. Not only would it allow you to air the space properly and provide you with valuable natural light, but it can also serve as the obligatory emergency exit.
In case your window isn’t enough, a good HVAC system in combination with a quality air purification system and some HEPA filters will also do the trick.
Just be extra careful with HVAC system installation, since turning it into a DIY project can end up costing you more than you can save.
To avoid making a capital mistake, hire a professional contractor to do it for you and stay on the safe side. Also, to save energy on air conditioning in your basement, insulate your walls and windows well and seal your rim joists before bringing in any furniture.
There’s no point in wasting perfectly good space. So, if you turn your basement into a room you’ll love spending time in, you won’t regret it.
