For bigger families/smaller houses - master BR in basement?

[ksr5377]

SOOO I thought we were planning on moving next year, but now DH has told me he would like to go back to school.  While work will pay for some - well, there go our savings for a bigger house.  In the end, a higher degree will end up paying for itself, so I'm OK with it.  Just a tad disappointed that we won't be getting more room in the near future.  However, in our conversations we did talk about the possibility of finishing our basement and putting in a bedroom, with the necessary egress windows for fire code etc.  DH was thinking our oldest would sleep down there - but she overheard and nixed that idea.  She thinks it would be scary (she's only 8).  So now I'm wondering about DH and I moving down there.  Are there any negatives I haven't thought of?  I'm thinking this would probably be a 3-5 year plan, until one of the kids would be willing to switch.  We're not giving up a master bathroom, b/c we don't have one upstairs anyways.  :tongue_smilie:   I can't really think of any reason why it would be different than a house with a first floor master. 

 

ETA: We have a single story, so we would only be one level below the children.  As for hearing them, I'm seriously considering not insulating the ceiling so that we would still be able to hear them.  As it is right now if you're in the basement you hear every footstep from the main level, especially since all our floors are 80 year old wood ones.

[Farrar]

My mom had it this way for awhile. It worked for them. I thought it was a clever way to get more space and privacy for the most part. The one thing that was sort of an issue was laundry access was right next to their room.

[regentrude]

I do not know how old you children are. With little children, I would not want them all by themselves on the main floor where the kitchen and front door are, with parents sleeping in the basement and not hearing when little ones get into mischief. Older kids, no problem.

[Ottakee]

Our neighbors did that and gave their kids the main floor bedrooms. Worked well for them.

 

For a short term solution it sounds great. Long term I would get sick of the steps and want to be on the main floor.

[Tsuga]

SOOO I thought we were planning on moving next year, but now DH has told me he would like to go back to school.  While work will pay for some - well, there go our savings for a bigger house.  In the end, a higher degree will end up paying for itself, so I'm OK with it.  Just a tad disappointed that we won't be getting more room in the near future.  However, in our conversations we did talk about the possibility of finishing our basement and putting in a bedroom, with the necessary egress windows for fire code etc.  DH was thinking our oldest would sleep down there - but she overheard and nixed that idea.  She thinks it would be scary (she's only 8).  So now I'm wondering about DH and I moving down there.  Are there any negatives I haven't thought of?  I'm thinking this would probably be a 3-5 year plan, until one of the kids would be willing to switch.  We're not giving up a master bathroom, b/c we don't have one upstairs anyways.  :tongue_smilie:   I can't really think of any reason why it would be different than a house with a first floor master. 

 

I had a room in the basement as a teen and we're in a remodeled basement right now. It's really nice and cool in the summer, but really cold in the winter. :)

[gingersmom]

We have a beautiful finished basement with a huge bedroom down there. Neither of my kids want to use it (even though my son is always down there).

 

I have a main floor master and a basement master would be weird for me. My kids would be 2 floors above me and I would be in a completely different end of the house from the other bedrooms. With my door open I can hear everything going on. In basement I would hear nothing.

[KungFuPanda]

I think it could be a really cool space. Set it up like a mini apartment and a kid will probably be willing to switch by 11 or 12. The privacy would be awesome. I refused to look at bedrooms far from the kids when we were house hunting. They were one and four at the time. Now I'm stuck sharing walls with teenagers :-/

[Liz CA]

Piggy backing on Regentrude's comment: If little ones will be sleeping on main floor, you may need high up and secure locks for front door (secure enough that a child standing on a chair cannot open it), perhaps something for fridge :) and perhaps some safety feature for the stove/oven.

[merry gardens]

Before moving any family member into a basement bedroom, check radon levels. Also, resolve any drainage issues or water problems before you finish the basement. It's easier to fix or avoid any potential problems with those things before the space is finished.

[Happy]

We did that for a short time. My oldest was still a toddler when we rented a nifty old farmhouse. The only place the landlord would let us put our waterbed was the room in the basement.

 

I hated not being on the same floor with my son. It was a secure house and we had German Shepherds roaming around for additional security, but I worried I wouldn't hear something important. Fire was my biggest worry, if I remember correctly.

 

It lasted all of four months before we did something else. :)

[MEmama]

Before moving any family member into a basement bedroom, check radon levels. Also, resolve any drainage issues or water problems before you finish the basement. It's easier to fix or avoid any potential problems with those things before the space is finished.

This.

And if you'll be selling your house in the nearish future, don't expect potential buyers to be impressed. You might consider remodeling it into a more neutral looking space, not something that screams "master bedroom". Many buyers will see that as "not enough functional space in the main house" and be turned off. I wouldn't discourage you from doing it if it works for you, but I wouldn't expect to recoup the money you'll spend on the remodel.

[wendy not in HI]

We had a two story home with the master on the first floor and all the kids on the second floor.  We really liked the lay out and it never occurred to me to worry about the kids being soooo far away.  The littles were right above our heads, so we could hear them easily.  Also the stairs were right there by our room.

 

Another time, we bought a one story 3 bedroom house with a large open basement - the kids' rooms were on the main floor and we had our bedroom in the basement.  That was okay, but the stairs were on the other end of the house from the bedrooms, and it felt really far away.  And there wasn't a bathroom in the basement.  We ended up moving back upstairs and turning the mudroom into a bedroom for one of the kids.  We could have stayed in the basement if we needed to, and I wasn't worried about the kids - the basement was inconvenient for several reasons, but it became a great guest room! 

 

 

[Grantmom]

If your oldest is only 8 and you have younger kids, I would make that space something else that you would turn your current bedroom into now.  If you move your bedroom down there now, what would you make your bedroom into?  A playroom?  I would make the space in the basement a family room or playroom and leave your bedroom near the littles.

[PeachyDoodle]

Our master is in the basement, out of necessity (our house only has two bedrooms). I cannot stress adequately how much I HATE IT.

 

It is like living in a cave, despite the fact that there are three good-sized windows and a door with a window. It attracts many more bugs than the main level (we had to hire an exterminator to come every couple of months). I can hear every single step someone makes upstairs, and since we have early risers, it's impossible to sleep in. It is a wide-open space (except for the bathroom and closet) that just fills up with junk because we need the storage too. I feel like I have no space to call my own, as it's not a pleasant place to just "hang out."

 

The only benefit was that, when ds was a newborn, one of us could care for him in the living room while the other slept in the basement, relatively insulated from the noise. (This was much better than our previous house, where we lived when dd was a newborn.) Now that ds is pushing 5, it's really not a benefit anymore. The kids' rooms are right over ours. We never had any trouble hearing them from downstairs, so that hasn't been an issue.

 

In the end, of course, you do what you need to do. I'm grateful to have a roof over my head and a warm place to sleep (or cool -- it's 100 degrees here this week!). But it's not ideal -- not by a long shot!

[ksr5377]

Thanks for the input.  I went ahead and ordered a Radon testing kit since, while not finished, it is clean and dry down there and the kids use a part of it as a play room. So they're down there quite a bit every day.  My main goal for moving down there would be to let one of the kids have bedroom.  Our bedrooms are all tiny.  Our "master" fits our queen bed, a nightstand on one side  and  2 feet of walking space between the bed and the closet on the other.  We have 3 kids in the other bedroom that's a bit smaller than ours, and then the baby has her own room - mainly because it has no closet and is barely long enough for twin to fit in anyways.  It makes a good nursery.  Anyways, I was just thinking that maybe us moving downstairs would make it at least seem like we have a little bit more elbow room.  Basically that space is just being used as a huge storage area, and that means we just end up filling it up and then cleaning it out to almost empty every year or so.  We basically delay the decision to get rid of things because we have a place to hide them.  I did think of fire, but since our smoke detectors are all linked together the ones in the basement would go off the same time as the ones upstairs.  I didn't really think about the spiders though......hmmm...something to consider.

[KarenNC]

My parents dug out and finished our basement when I was a kid, ending with a den (with sliding glass door), utility room, and two bedrooms (none of the other rooms had any windows), and a suspended ceiling. They had to install a dehumidifier that drained to the outside because it stayed full due to dampness. It flooded more than once so they put in indoor/outdoor carpet that could be hauled outside to dry out if needed. Rolypoly bugs collected in the light fixtures. No bathroom on that level, as the logistics for a flush toilet were too problematic with the sewer connections being on level with the main floor.

 

My parents did use one of the bedrooms as a master for a while, but that changed after my mother passed away and my dad remarried. My stepmother had an adjustable bed with motor that was too risky to have with possible flooding, so the basement room became my room. I did not like it, though I have to admit it was quiet as long as no one was moving around upstairs. I have some degree of claustrophobia and it was basically sleeping in a windowless box---even opening the bedroom door to let a little natural light in from the den didn't help much as the door was on one end of the room and the open door blocked the light from most of the rest of the room.

[ThursdayNext]

My concern would be not enough morning sunlight. If you don't get enough sunlight, it can mess with your sleep clock, and make you feel tired/depressed. But maybe you could get one of those sun lamps on a timer.

 

I think it sounds like a good idea, and if you don't like it, turn it into a den/playroom.

[Carrie12345]

We're reversed. Master suite is the only room upstairs, the rest of the house is downstairs. So the kids have been on a separate floor for 10 years (whole lives for the younger two.)

While we can hear *almost everything from our room, I've been wishing for a bit more sound proofing now that the kids are getting older.  If you catch my drift.

[shawthorne44]

You mentioned maybe switching later on.   If your kids are good kids that would probably work wonderfully.  But I'm just throwing this out there.  Growing up I had a second cousin my age who had been a menopause baby.  Starting as an early teen she got the basement as pretty much her private domain.  There was a large laundry room and full bathroom and her bedroom (large).   Her mother had bad knees and didn't like the stairs.  Her dad just never saw much reason to go down there.  She made heavy use of the lack of supervision.  She could leave through the egress window and then just say she was sleeping if they asked why she didn't answer their call.  Or sometimes others would come in though the window.