Basement Design Considerations

Are you considering expanding your living space into your unfinished basement? This home renovation is one of the most versatile and valuable features you can add to your home. Your basement has so much potential to be a new playroom for the kids, an entertainment room for guests, a quiet home office, or even an exercise room for that treadmill in the corner of the bedroom covered with clothes. Any realtor will tell you that houses listed on the market with nicely appointed finished basements tend to sell much quicker than other comparables in your neighborhood. Your home should grow as your lifestyle and your family’s needs grow. Here are a few useful design ideas and value considerations for a successful basement renovation project.


Alternative Ideas for Designing Your Basement

Here are a few boutique design ideas for your basement living space that will truly separate your home from your neighbors. Wine and cigar aficionados should consider a climate controlled room as to protect your fine wine and cigar collection. Finely appointed humidity and temperature controlled rooms can include rough saw cedar paneling with built-in shelving and bottle racks. Families with young children should consider a playroom and mudroom area with shoe cubbies to keep boots, shoes and coats organized. Other ideas for playrooms include built-in play-sets or HDMI cable pre-wire for video game and movie consoles. Entertainers and hosts should consider a pub style bar with accent lighting, custom hand crafted bar tops and shelving for pilsner glasses and storage for your ‘top shelf’ liquors. Taps for your favorite craft brewed beers and comfortable bar stools will invite guests to ‘pull up a seat’. Finally, for baby boomers looking to modify their existing homes to comfortably accommodate visiting friends and grown children, consider converting the basement into a master bedroom / master bathroom suite. This new basement master suite gives your existing home a ‘dueling master suites’ feature that is attractive to some buyers in the marketplace today.

Temperature Control Considerations

Due to the insulating factor of the surrounding earth, your new basement living area will naturally stay cooler in the summer and will only take a minimal amount of additional heating in the winter. Consider radiant heating as the best option for heating your new basement living space. Electrical radiant heating mats can be placed easily under new flooring and installed with a programmable thermostat for easy operation. Another advantage to radiant heating is the ability to maintain the ceiling height by not having to frame soffits to hide new ductwork. Avoiding the modification of existing ductwork to supply heat to the basement also ensures the temperatures of your upper floors do not change after your basement renovation has been completed.

Natural Lighting Considerations

Natural lighting is a precious resource for comfortable basement living areas. Needless to say, small basement window wells provide very little sunlight. Instead of covering up these window wells with plastic covers to keep the leaves out, consider opening up these areas for more natural lighting. If your basement window wells are concrete you have the option of applying veneer brick such as Eldorado Stone to the inside of the window well for a more appealing look through the window from the basement level. If your window wells are corrugated metal, consider digging these out and installing retaining wall block. This option will provide more natural lighting and also accent the appearance of the window wells.

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