Thursday, April 18, 2013

The Maybe, Very Possible Future Basement.

I have mentioned our basement here and there recently. I figured with my recent floor plan producing skills that I could drum up what we're thinking of doing. We are still waiting for our quotes to see where we are at and if it is even feasible. I really hope it is because the additional finished square footage would be awesome.

Here we are all unfinished:


I didn't actually "draw" out the things (washer, dryer, furnace, etc.) because I didn't want to measure. It's one of those things where if I go the distance to be accurate on the size of the things, then I'll need to be accurate on the placement and then I will spend about a week trying to put together a simple line drawing.

Right now, we have a lot of junk going on and we've been working on that. That mostly stems from someone's parents always dropping off stuff that was theirs... and just re-doing the living room and winter (summer stuff thrown down there) and the fact that it is the easiest place to just throw everything. Sometimes literally. Shoes? Just throw those down the stairs. Dirty laundry? Just throw that down the stairs too. Works well until you look down the stairs or actually go down there...

I had been working on at least making the bottom of the stairs and what was visible when you walked in the back door presentable. I had sort of painted the stairs, but even after doing prep, it's peeling up in a couple spots. I think it is from the many layers of paint. What was there was peeling already and while I cleaned it up, I'm sure more of it had issues within those multiple layers. Also, the sides of the stairs are/were open. You could see the water heater and the sewer stack. Yay. I stapled some curtains to that side of the stairs as a temporary fix. The opposite side of the stairs has chunks of plywood added, I'm guessing to pass some sort of code for selling the house. (Our city has a fairly strict inspection that you have to pass before you can put a house on the market & sell it). I think this is one of the things I am looking forward to the most: a good view down the stairs.


We have a few weird obstacles... The water comes in right in the middle of the wall, so a general plan right now is to rework the plumbing a little so any valves we would need to access are down low. The line would look like a column and there would be a small access panel to get at everything that needs to be reached. The gas meter is slightly massive, it will probably just be in a closet. I'm not really sure how big that would be at this point, but I'm thinking if it's going to be there, might as well have it a little bigger than what I show here so that I can stick a shelf in there and store some stuff.

Right now I was not really planning on the office area being a separate room, just more of an area. I guess we'll see. It might make more sense to jut add a door. Thoughts? I did add the wall coming from the right side for fun to see how that would "look." I think it might make more sense that way if there is no door. I should really have a door, shouldn't I? I think kids later on will necessitate a door...

I originally wanted a door at the bottom of the stairs, but the last contractor that was here pointed out that building code now requires that a door be placed three feet out from the bottom step, which puts it in a really weird spot. So, no door there.

We are waiting to see were costs are before we decide on the laundry room. Because we're already doing two walls really, we were told it shouldn't cost that much more. Closing in the ceiling there would probably add more though because there is a lot of weird piping and what not in that area for water and gas.

Hopefully in the next month we can get everything rolling. I'm so excited for the possibilities I could burst. I will be extremely sad and disappointed if we can't make this happen though... I am hoping that any work we end up doing can be completed by the 4th of July when we have our annual party.

Anyone out there who has gone through the trouble of having their basement finished, is it worth it? Any tips or advice?

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