Basement Renovations: Part 1
Since our raised bungalow only had 2 bedrooms upstairs, we decided to take advantage of the blank slate which was our basement in order to create that third bedroom and a new living area. We were also keeping our mind set on resale and thinking it would best to have that extra room. The intention is to keep the basement as flexible as possible putting walls in natural locations and leaving it open for someone else to change.
Part 1 of this series is the before pictures of the basement.
This is the front corner of the house. That window is at ground level. Beside it is the under side of the stairs going to the main level. It is about 10 feet from wall to wall and just off the picture on the right side is another window. This is the location of the bedroom that we are going to purpose as an office.
Here is a look from in front of the window above looking down the wall. The wall will be at the second stud before that window at around 12 feet. We plan on adding a closet to this room as well. At the far end by the other window we plan to put the living space, TV, couches, etc.
From the same spot, but looking in the other direction, you can see the rest of the main area. We will have only 1 jack post to deal with as the other two will be incorporated into walls. In the far corner it will be open, and beside were you see the black pipe next to the jack post will be where we put our bathroom.
Walking to the other end of the basement, you can see the wall where the bathroom will be. In the corner will be stand up shower, and along the wall will be the toilet and sink. The wall for the room will end a foot or so before the window you see on the top left.
On the other side of the bathroom will be our furnace room. The duct on the right is inset into the wall from the stairs just off to the right of the picture creating a void where we will put a closet. After that we will frame in a door and create a wall in line with the jack post just to the left of the drain pipe you see on the left side.
Flooring
We are going to use the Dri-core product on the floor. I never liked cold basement floors, so this will provide the thermal break, plus keep it dry because it is a floating floor and is covered with plastic on the one side.
Walls
Simple, just covering with dry wall. As you can see from most of the picture the bottom half of the walls are insulated and stand out to create a shelf so we will maybe come up with a nice looking ledge for that.
Ceiling
May not get to the ceiling right away, but we are planning on a suspended ceiling. I prefer these in basements as it leaves easy access to the floor for the main floor for any purpose (running extra wire, inspecting tub cleanouts, etc) not to mention any water leaks does not cause a lot of damage; easy to replace a single tile rather than a lot of soaked dry wall.
That’s if for part 1. As I write this we have the flooring almost done and the framing fairly close, so look for part 2 soon!