Talk to me about basement finishing

[Carrie12345]

I cannot stand when someone has to work from home and I get pushed to a secondary location. 😛 

We don’t want to finish the whole basement, just an office room, a small bedroom (has egress window), a basic bathroom (is pre-plumbed) and a storage closet.  
Basement is wonderfully dry, poured concrete, currently with the wrapped insulation that would have to be switched out in the finished areas.

Additional electrical can be done by dh (overseen by our electrician friend.) Finishing like flooring and painting can be done by us. Mostly, I want to outsource framing and drywalling, plus the installation of toilet, sink, and prefab shower. Oh, and doors. And the trim for the window.

Baseboard heaters would go in instead of screwing with HVAC.

What jobs/large expenses might I be overlooking?

[Faith-manor]

No idea really accept to say to check property taxes and see what you can do to NOT have that go up a ton. The way we avoided that here was that the basement is not considered finished living space and taxable until the ceiling is done. 

[Carrie12345]

1 minute ago, Faith-manor said:

No idea really accept to say to check property taxes and see what you can do to NOT have that go up a ton. The way we avoided that here was that the basement is not considered finished living space and taxable until the ceiling is done. 

That’s an interesting catch! Regardless, the bedroom and bath at minimum would have to count in case we’re faced with kinship care.

[prairiewindmomma]

Waterproofing… I assume the plumbing is already stubbed and you already have a sump pump?

[KungFuPanda]

Know your family before you spend the money. I’ve known more than one family who built a finished basement homeschooling room  or office only to learn that the family rejected working underground and kept returning to their preferred work spaces. 

[knitgrl]

For a quick moment, I saw the title as "Basement fishing," which did not sound like a good thing, but I was nonetheless intrigued.

[Carrie12345]

2 hours ago, KungFuPanda said:

Know your family before you spend the money. I’ve known more than one family who built a finished basement homeschooling room  or office only to learn that the family rejected working underground and kept returning to their preferred work spaces. 

The office is for dh, and he doesn’t have much choice, lol. We don’t like how loud he is when he occasionally works from home, and the dogs are too loud for his calls and virtual meetings in the main part of the house. He’d be under the least used area, with the most soundproofing. He may be switching to full-time home in a few months. 😬 (But also traveling, so there’s that.)

The bedroom is for dd, who is only home part of the time and is often on a different sleep schedule than the rest of us. 

[Farrar]

So, I thought our basement finishing was going to be that simple and there turned out to be a lot more design decisions and little things than I anticipated, so I guess just brace yourself for that.

[prairiewindmomma]

If you have any sort of allergies, dont put in carpet. For us, that would mean tile, and at our ages now, I would want to plan for heated tile. Dh works from home and always is running a space heater in winter in his office. 

[cjzimmer1]

This isn't a large job/expense but something I wish I had known about.  We have a split level so nearly the whole basement is finished.  Most is carpet but their is some vinyl as well.  But the floor was so cold to walk on.  When our sump pump died and flooded the basement, we redid the floors.  I put a product called Dry Barrier (I think that is what it is called) but basically they were plastic pieces with feet that snapped together and created an air gap between the poured concrete floor and the flooring we installed.  It is SO MUCH nicer downstairs and the floor doesn't feel cold.  Bonus is if the sump pump ever dies again, there is a gap so the carpet isn't likely to get soaked again. SO when considering flooring, think about creating an airgap between the concrete and your flooring for a nicer experience walking/living in the basement area.

[Carrie12345]

21 minutes ago, cjzimmer1 said:

This isn't a large job/expense but something I wish I had known about.  We have a split level so nearly the whole basement is finished.  Most is carpet but their is some vinyl as well.  But the floor was so cold to walk on.  When our sump pump died and flooded the basement, we redid the floors.  I put a product called Dry Barrier (I think that is what it is called) but basically they were plastic pieces with feet that snapped together and created an air gap between the poured concrete floor and the flooring we installed.  It is SO MUCH nicer downstairs and the floor doesn't feel cold.  Bonus is if the sump pump ever dies again, there is a gap so the carpet isn't likely to get soaked again. SO when considering flooring, think about creating an airgap between the concrete and your flooring for a nicer experience walking/living in the basement area.

I’ve seen those!

Carpet is a no for me. The only reason I have it on the second floor is for noise reduction, and that was before thinking about getting a big shedding dog. 😱 

[Lecka]

I would think about your fire exits and where your drier vent is.  
 

I have heard a horror story where someone had a drier vent fire, and it would have blocked an exit from a bedroom if someone had been in the bedroom.  Or they worried a child wouldn’t have actually been able to get out the window with the stairs blocked, because it was hard to open, it was something like that.  

[Carrie12345]

25 minutes ago, Lecka said:

I would think about your fire exits and where your drier vent is.  
 

I have heard a horror story where someone had a drier vent fire, and it would have blocked an exit from a bedroom if someone had been in the bedroom.  Or they worried a child wouldn’t have actually been able to get out the window with the stairs blocked, because it was hard to open, it was something like that.  

Oh, we’re obsessive about fire hazards! 😁 It’s a standard window and only for the adult child.  
I love that in this new house our dryer is on an exterior wall with an itty bitty (in length) vent hose compared to the old house with laundry in the center.

[LifeLovePassion]

Radon system? We put one in before we finished our basement. We also put down insulated sub floor tiles before flooring. 

[SHP]

Make sure your internet has a strong signal in the basement. 

Look at flat LED light panels to make "windows" so it doesn't feel like a dungeon. 

[popmom]

We finished our our basement several years ago, and I cannot imagine life without those spaces! The guest bedroom and bath is great for isolating COVID patients. 😜 Amenities you never thought you’d need in 2019. 
 

Our only TV is in the den down there. It’s a daylight basement so there’s a large double window in the bedroom and a door to the patio and backyard. 
 

We did make the mistake of using carpet in most of it. We just recently pulled it up and put down LVP. Dh did that. 
 

We hired out the framing, drywall, ceiling, trim, and tile work. I did caulking and painting. Dh installed the bath vanity and toilet. The tub was already there—we just had to do the tile surround and faucets. 
 

There are still things that need touch ups, but I got sick and life went on pause for a few years. Just now getting back to those finishing touches. 

My only advice is don’t do carpet. 
 

I hope you love it as much as we do! 
 

 

[Carrie12345]

10 hours ago, LifeLovePassion said:

Radon system? We put one in before we finished our basement. We also put down insulated sub floor tiles before flooring. 

Good call! We have a radon pipe, but there’s no fan installed. I’ll look into testing to see where we’re at.

10 hours ago, SHP said:

Make sure your internet has a strong signal in the basement. 

Look at flat LED light panels to make "windows" so it doesn't feel like a dungeon. 

Every floor has good wi-fi, because our cell signal sucks. The bummer is that calls drop when switching floors/bases. 😒 

[Bambam]

I'm going to give up (maybe) and wear my reading glasses while scrolling through the WTM. 
I was SURE the thread topic was "Basement Fishing". That sounds intriguing, let's check this out, and wouldn't it smell. Oops. "Finishing" not "Fishing". 

[Forget-Me-Not]

If you're putting in bedrooms, consider installing wall heaters.  We had them installed (they're called Cadet heaters) in each of the three basement bedrooms when we built our house and they have been fantastic.

At the time we had our house built, we were staying in my parents basement and using space heaters constantly any time we were downstairs.   However, we discovered that we couldn't use two of them on the same circuit.  We asked the builder of our house about this, thinking maybe we could add more circuits.  Instead he suggested these wall heaters and we absolutely love them.  

Edited January 12 by Forget-Me-Not

[Carrie12345]

I’m going to have nightmares about people fishing in my basement now!