How important IS a basement?

[fairfarmhand]

For the kids play area, we have a bonus room (finished area over the garage acessed by stairs, separate from the main living area.

 

It's really nice.

 

Computers are up there, television. My living room is where people read and quietly live, while the noisy stuff happens up in the bonus room. It's really nice.

[G5052]

Where I grew up and lived after college, very few houses had a basement. Of all of the friends I had growing up, only one family did. One whole side of it looked out at the backyard; the kids rooms were there. Then behind that was a playroom. Upstairs was the main living area, the parents' room, a library, and a guest room. I thought it was the coolest house ever!

 

Nearly all of the houses where I live have basements. Frankly it's just storage for us, but some people finish theirs.

[Paige]

For me, basements are a priority if we live in an area where tornadoes are common. It doesn't have to be OK- I'd want it in any state getting around 10 or more a year: 

https://goo.gl/images/F2UIJO

 

If I lived in a no tornado state, I wouldn't care as long as I could still get the sq footage and rooms I wanted. Basements can be a PITA.

[Spryte]

We live in an area with both basements and no basements.

 

I don't have a preference either way, as long as the house has enough finished area for our needs.

 

Our basement is huge, and 75% finished. It's well lit (windows and sliders on one side) and we use it for mostly play. There's a guest room with my work out equipment, too. And a hallway that has built ins, and interesting nooks. I do like it, and without that extra space the house would not work for us.

[Targhee]

depending upon where you are in the PNW - daylight basements are common. it's *really* easy to make a daylight basement into the side of a hill so you can have a house on top. . .

We had a house with a basement ina river valley in the PNW - flooded three times in three years. It was unfinished but the flooding (usually because high rains then wind knocks out the power so my sump pump would quite) made it fairly unusable.

 

Also live in the PNW with a craw space - not fun to access. Lived in Alaska with a totally sealed up nice crawl space accessible from the inside and it was great. Now building a house in the desert southwest. It isn't likely we will get flooding, but soils can be unstable and our lot won't allow for a walkout, so I would rather not build a dungeon or a junk collecting space. We are planning a slab with a two story.

[J-rap]

How important is a basement?  Well, we live in a really old house with a creepy unfinished basement, although we use it for a lot of things.  Apart from safety from tornados (which pass through our area maybe a few times/summer), we use it for messy art activities in the winter, plus extra storage, a workbench, a laundry tub for messy projects like cleaning our dog, practicing scripts for plays, and more. 

 

But would it be worth looking for a new home that has a basement if we didn't live in tornado alley?  Probably not.  I think I'd rather have a big family room on the first floor.  Although I must admit the nice thing about our particular basement is that we can be as messy as we want in it and it doesn't matter.  And, it's nice to have an an area where we can be messy in the winter -- when we can't do projects in the backyard or garage.

[BarbecueMom]

So, it's the hottest day in a very long time (I saw a wasp collapse with heat stroke)... and our A/C went out. Hot and muggy upstairs, but still very cool and pleasant in the finished basement. We'd have to flee for the night if we didn't have it. Instead we're going to camp out downstairs and watch Harry Potter and play board games. Totally worth it today!

Edited July 22, 2017 by BarbecueMom

[Spryte]

Well, we've just spent a lovely hour in our basement, due to a tornado warning... :)