I am curious what experiences others have had with finished basements. We are looking into waterproofing our basement and it would be great if we can eventually finish it inexpensively so that we can add some more living space to our very small house. I would not put a bedroom there, but I was thinking that it might be nice to have a rec. room for the kids, an office space and a clean laundry area and place to store things. The problem is that I never think of a basement as being a very healthy envoronment even when it is finished. What is your experience? Does your finished basement still feel dark, dank and musty or does it feel like the rest of your home? Do you end up using the space a lot?
As a little background-we have never had standing water in our basement, but the humidity is always very high in our area.
Thanks for any feedback!
So happy to hear all the responses so far. I hope more to come. Yes, our basement is a bit of a "dungeon" as it is now, but two new basement windows (the small ones) and a larger egress window might help at least let more light in. And, yes, the house is older, built in the 40's, so that doesn't help either. Thanks again everyone!
My brother and Sis in law had their basement waterproofed and finished off. They used a local company(unfortunately, I don't remeber the company's name) andnit is beautiful. The company uses the Corning (Pink PAnther Comercial) materials and it is really nice. They live in Sayreville NJ.
We have a finished basement turned into a play room for the kids but sometime later will get some real seating and turn it into some kind of lounge space or something. We have a full bathroom down there so it's perfect if we have overnight guests since we don't have any extra bedrooms. We use a dehumidifier in the summer and a humidifier in the winter, and everything is perfect! Sometimes I drag my breadmaker down there when it's cooking so that the basement smells great- it's more homey to me then! Only regret is that we got Berber-type carpet which is not great for the kids' toys; the loops tend to pull up and then get caught in the vacuum if the brush is used....
I just had my basement renovated last year and I'm so happy with it!
It was one of those nasty cinderblock basements, dark and dingy. There are 3 small windows on the east side and none on the west side, so lighting was definitely a consideration.
I wanted a family room/playroom area, a full bathroom and a gym area.
The contractor who renovated one of my bathrooms said he could do the whole job excluding electric. The goal was to keep it under $20K, which is cheap for this area. I drew up a layout for him and for the electricians, based on some helpful information I was able to get from the web (I downloaded a booklet on renovating basements for about $17 and it was probably the best $17 I spent).
Because of the low natural lighting, I kept the floor plan very open. We put walls up with access doors to block off the furnace/hot water heater/water tank/oil tank (furnace required louvered doors for airflow). We also walled off the laundry area and put in double doors for easy access, but left that area unfinished. The only other areas we walled off were a large walk-in storage closet and the bathroom. Everything else is open, including the staircase. This made the whole basement seem more airy and light and gives the impression of being a bigger space than it really is.
For lighting we used high-hats and accent sconces. It never feels unnaturally dark.
The contractor sealed up the cinderblock walls with special paint that helps seal out moisture (however, very important to deal with any leak issues before you have major work done. I redirected my downspouts and clean my gutters out 2x a year to prevent basement leaks). Then he sheetrocked the walls, about 6 inches away from the cinderblocks (again, to prevent leaks and mold). He also sheetrocked most of the ceiling, except one part where there are too many pipes - in that section we did a drop ceiling for easy access to plumbing. He did have to leave some exposed pipes/heating ducts in a few areas, but I hardly even notice them. It's amazing how polished everything looks with the sheetrocking.
We painted the walls cottage white with white floor and ceiling trim. I originally wanted carpeting on the floor, but a friend talked me out of it and I went with a pine laminate over a vapor barrier instead. It looks fantastic and is so easy to clean. I finished off the whole look with a big screen TV, area rugs and a very nice futon. There are storage shelves in the gym area for all my son's toys. I still can't get over the transformation!
Just remember to test for radon before beginning your project. Once it's done, you'll need to invest in a good humidifier to keep out the damp. I also put one of those plug-in scent things down there.
Sorry this is so long, but I'm still excited about it! Best of luck!
I say go for it, but my suggestion would be to make sure you install a good dehumidifier....basements, waterproofed or not can be damp and musty and mold growing behind the walls or under the carpet where you cannot see it can be very dangerous to the health of your family. Dehumidifiers can be a pain because they need to be constantly emptied....my husband installed one in ours that actually has a pump, which he attached to the washing machine drain line....when the dehumidifier is full, the automatic pump turns on and pumps all the water out......no need to empty it ever!! I believe the brand was DeLonghi. Good Luck with your renovation!
We have had lots of basements over the years. They have all been 'walk outs...means doors and windows.
Your basement sounds like a dungeon.
My favorite's over the years, and since your want to do this as affordable as possible, just paint the entire floor with concrete paint. Then the kids could roller skate, or play on those little scooters without ruining other floors.
We are moving to another home in a few months and that basement has a large dance floor...Yeah for that. I told the kids to start planning a dance party complete with disco ball and lights. I'm going to hire a Zumba teacher to come over teach a class to me and girlfriends after we move in...and a yoga instructor after that.
Another nice thing I've seen is to simply tack up sheets on the walls, covering the beams. They fall nicely, cover up what's behind, it's not permanent and you can choose any color scheme you desire.
And keep space for cold storage during the winter.
We currently have a large TV / Wii area, kitchenette area, large guest room, large bathroom, and a ping pong table.
Hi, we bought a house in St Louis in 1989; spent $7000 (half the current rate due to hiring a close friend) fixing basement up with rooms, cedar closet & a large bathroom with nice fixtures in 1991.
We lived in there a LOT although I didn't like the spiders that lived there. I didn't notice any musty smell.
During the great flood of 1993, we did not get one drop of water in there. The smaller flood of 1995 brought water in but carpet was barely damaged. My husband got a very nice (not sure what it's called) thing for the drain in the laundry room that prevented flooding during our regular heavy rains most years.
We DID have the sewer overflow through the toilet & 1/3 of the carpet was ruined around 2001. That made me sick, although insurance replaced & paid for thorough cleaning.
After we sold house in 2006, the people who lived there must not have known how to do the drain thing and the whole basement was ruined! They gutted the entire basement, gorgeous bathroom & all!
Ok, TMI! Not sure if you live near a river or if it rains much where you live, but that was our experience. As long as you can keep the water out, you can have a nice basement for years to come. Ironically, I believe the beautiful basement was what sold our home in the first place!
edited: we used a dehumidifier also
edited again: I WISH we had a basement now in TX. They come in handy during tornadoes. Yikes, almost forgot. We used our basement for shelter but were very blessed that we never had damage due to storms.
we live in our basement fully underground with just small windows( by live I mean it is where our family room and play room is...we spend a lot of time down there). It gets plenty of sun lightin the summer and we have a great set light can's for the winter months. we have a 3/4 finished basement and it is our family room and we have a play room and a rec-room with a pool table etc. It's not a big basement 1200 sf. but it sure does add a lot to the size of our home. Just shut your laundry room and furnace room off of view and you will have a great basement to use.
Is your house older? Is that why you feel it might be musty or unhealthy? Our home is 15 yrs old and my husband finished it off about 13 yrs ago (and we recently had to renovate, due to a broken water spicket outside that leaked in and a broken motor in the dishwasher above us that caused extensive damage...kitchen and basment remodel, over $10,000!) Anyway, I have my daycare in our basement...we have a sprinkler system and my husband installed an egress window and we put in the biggest one we could. Instead of just building a window well, he actually built brick walls and steps out of the window, so you can see outside. (I wish I had an exposed basement, but we don't.)
We have light colored walls, a ceiling fan and light/multi colored carpet. Hubs put in a bathroom, we have a big bedroom (we use as family room...kids LOVE it) and my daycare, along w/ the whole front area as laundry/storage...always a big mess!!! LOL!
I do not mind spending time down here at all...We also have knotty pine on the lower half of the walls w/ a shelf above where I keep kids books (before it was daycare, we displayed our collectibles.)
And yes, we sometimes have to run a de-humidifier in the summer...but all in all, if you choose light colors and set it up just right...it will feel like the rest of your house, just w/ less windows!!! Good luck!
We finished our basement when we built our house 3.5 years ago. It has a large rec room where we have seating, a TV, the Wii, a large air hockey table, a basketball 5in1 arcade thing for the kids, a bedroom, and a bathroom (unfinished). We use the bedroom as storage right now....I don't see us using it as an actual bedroom ever, but who knows.
Our basement feels like the rest of the house.It's not dark or musty or anything like that. We've never had issues with water (knock on wood) and love it. I can't imagine NOT having that living space.
My dad will NEVER have a basement though. All people are different :).
We renovated about 5 years ago and put in 2 bedrooms, a livingroom and a full bathroom. Also a laundry room and furnace room. The bedrooms are on the small size but there are 7 of us living here so we needed the extra space. We have a dehumidifier to help with the humidity. We are actually having to redo everything due to flooding during Irene but we are using an epoxy paint on the cement floor with throw rungs and we resheetrocked and painted everything with bright paint colors to brighten it up and have bright lights to help. Before we had a raised subflooring that was plastic underneath so any water we got would flow under the floor. Unfortunately that didn't help when we got 4 feet of water. I love the basement and glad that we can use it now instead of just using it for storage. Good luck to you with what ever you deceide to do.
We LOVE our finished basement. Now, we have four HUGE windows (2'x3') in the basement, 2 of them facing south, 2 of them facing west, and so we get a LOT of light down there. We also painted the walls a pale yellow to keep it as bright as possible. But, with 2 boys (6&9) and all their toys, it's nice to have a place to put them that I can close the door on if I don't get around to picking up at night. We also put a large screen tv down there with 5 pt. surround sound for our movie nights (which really work better in a dark place).
