Basements

[Karly]

Do you have a basement? Is it finished? Is it organized? How does it work for you? Gah, that's a lot of questions, but I'm really curious!

We have a partially finished basement on our house. Right now, we've only got the framing up against the poured cement walls, and the insulation. Those two things were a bonus when we moved it since the code changed during construction! We thought it would just be poured walls only!

When my dad was here over the summer, he wired the basement also, so we now have 8 hot outlets and room to expand. We'd love to drywall and carpet to just finish it off totally, but we need to wait a bit to get some more cash.

[Karly]

Oh, I forgot to say to post pictures if you've got them.

[Cami]

No basement here. Oh how I miss that! We didn't have a basement in England either.

Our house in KY was partially finished-- drywalled and wired but not carpeted. We just stored stuff down there and had gym equipment there. Most of our neighbors had finished basements--- extra bedroom, playroom, media room.

[marcy]

We have a basement, and it's mostly finished.

Half of the basement is taken up by the 2 car garage. What we have is:
room under the front porch, about 6 ft x 12 ft. We had a large closet put in here, two bi-fold doors. It stores sewing supplies, gift wrap, misc. computer pieces, and tons of board games. We have a hallway that connects said room and the man door to the biggest area, which is L shaped. We have, behind doors, laundry storage and W/D. Next to that is our pantry. I LOVE our pantry. The deep freeze is here too. Next to that is a closet with the hot water heater and furnace. By that is a L shaped office area. We mostly use the laptops upstairs so the desktop isn't used much - it's not a very comfy area since it's small. Behind that is the (existing) cedar closet which stores off season clothes and misc items (Easter baskets, bowling balls, etc)

Specifically we have drywall, some areas have insulation between the furring strips, and we have a # of outlets. We had the electrical box upgraded prior to having it finished since the new box was a bit bigger. Standard drop ceiling. Biggest problem: No heat in the basement so we use a space heater in winter if we're on the computer for a long time. Plus we don't have too much space - like no area for the kids to play. DH really wanted a basement that could be "man land" but we just didn't get it in this house. Part of the flooring is old carpet, part is peel and stick tiles, and when the old non-load-bearing walls were taken out there are some areas that are just the cement floor. I'd love to put a real floor in - just carpet - but it's low on the list.

I posted some pictures last year: http://www.onceuponalife.com/forums/...nt#post1155233

[kalm]

No basements here (unless you want an under-the-house saltwater swimming pool!). I'd love one though.

[Darcy]

We have a basement and it's fully finished. It has a bar and a 1/2 bath, which is the nicest bathroom in the house! The previous homeowners had a home theater set up down there with a projector to a drop-down movie screen.

We don't use the room nearly as much as I thought we would. It's always cold down there, and I hate being cold. When the kids were little, we played on the first floor because it was closer for diaper changes/naps/food in the kitchen. And I've kinda kept it that way. The laundry is in the basement, though, and I wish it wasn't.

This is when we had our walk-through, so it's all the previous homeowners' stuff:

[pam]

We don't have a basement. They are generally not done in Southern California.

[marcy]

Darcy, that's really nice. And I love the color.

[Jayne]

Sure we have a basement..I can't imagine many homes in Ohio don't..That said..ours is as tall as I am and for those of you who don't know I am 4'11 (Dan has to duck a lot!) Since 2002 when the huge rain caim through here we have been pumping water out of our basement through a sump pump system and so we have a very WET basement. We also have dirt walls and somewhat dirt/cement floors. what totally stinks is that our laundry is down there so I am down there at least 2 times a day..I hate it.

[Karri]

That's a nice basement, Darcy!!

About 2/3 of our basement is finished and based on the look of it, I am guessing it was done in the 60-70's. Its HIDEOUS. Split wood walls, striped fug carpet. However, its huge. And we'd love to tear it all down and redo it. The layout is less than ideal. You have to pass through a partially finished area to get to the rec room area. There are separate rooms for the laundry and workshop and storage and there's even a 1/2 bathroom, but where they are located is lame -- like the bathroom is off the laundry room. So we're not using that bath right now.

I recently moved most of our playroom to the rec room so that we could convert what was the main floor playroom to a den. Here is a set of 360 photos from the day I did it. Since then, the TV and couch have come out. Our plan is to paint the wood walls white-ish to make it lighter down there. And to tear the carpet out and do the cement floors and get some area rugs. And to tear out that little ceiling and bench area, mirror, and lights where the TV is. The bench is a storage area and it scares me. I think at one time, based on the mirror and lights, they may have thought to put a bar there?

I don't have recent photos of the other finished area, but its a kitchen - really fug asbestos tiled flooring, cabinets, countertop, sink, and walls that were painted w/ daisies

[Dennis]

We have a mostly finished basement. They broke it up into three rooms and two of them are finished and one is an unfinished storage room. The two finsihed ones have a wide opening with pocket doors separating them, so it's almost like one big room. I'd much prefer if it was totally open into one room because the rooms aren't all that big. We set up one of the rooms as a playroom with chalkboard paint on the walls and such. The other room is covered in bookshelves for all of Mary's books (and a few of mine).

We really don't use it a whole lot, aside from when the kids have friends over. I think they'll use it more when they get older and want more space.

[sheila]

We also have a mostly finished basement. But it desperately needs to be re-finished. We had some water issues a few years ago. We've fixed the issue, so it is time to re-do it.

The basement has an unfinished area that needs some re-org, too. It has a freezer, some shelves and a tool bench along with the HVAC and all that. Stagg's office is down there, we have a full bath and a large room with our big TV.

[gulp!]

we have a basement, half of which is finished and half is unfinished storage. The finished part serves as our den/movie room- it's carpeted, regular drywall walls, and has a closet and a full bathroom. Because of the full bathroom, it also serves as our guest "suite", and we put a door at the top of the steps to give guests their privacy.

Our Maine house does not have a basement, and I have to say that I'm thrilled about that. While we've not had any catastrophic basement flooding events, we did have water issues with our townhouse when we first moved in, and Anish's childhood home's basement flooded every time it rained. Not being there all the time, we're so happy to not worry about that up in Maine.

[Jessica]

We have a mostly finished basement...there is a huge finished room with lots of storage and it's very open. We use that as a family room. There's a bar down there too. There's a full bathroom, but we rarely use that...it really needs to be re-done. The back room is not finished, but that's where the laundry and workbench are. It's got dark paneling, but it's not bad at all now that we replaced the dark pink carpeting with something lighter and neutral. I love our basement.

[Alyson]

We don't have a basement. Like Pam said, it's pretty rare to see them in Southern California. However, we're really hoping that once we move and buy in MO we'll have a basement. Most of the homes we've checked out online have finished basements and we're both pretty excited about that! haha

[MamaGoofy]

Originally Posted by kalm

No basements here (unless you want an under-the-house saltwater swimming pool!). I'd love one though.

Yeah what she said...except for the part of loving to have one..I don't want one.

[TtownAnne]

We have a basement, but it's not finished and we're okay with that. The house where we lived when we got married had a finished basement and I could count on two hands the number of times we used it. Our last house had the beginnings of finishing the basement (studs and insulation with a rough in for a bathroom) but we never finished it, and we have no plans to finish the basement here.

[bunybomb]

We finished our basement about 2 years ago, all 400 sq ft of it. It's the man cave. Chris' 55 inch tv takes up most of the room. It's one room sort of two sections, one with the couch and tv and one side with a table. There is a half bath as well that is really nice. We paid about $2000.00 to finish it. Framing, drywall, doors hung, bathroom tiled and fixtures set. We have a friend who did most of it and we paid someone else under the table to complete the framing.

I am not one for staying down there for long periods of time. I don't like how dark it is. I don't go down there in the summer even though it's cooler.

[Kristen]

No basement.

I wish we had one. It would be so handy for a playroom, but alas we have toys scattered throughout the house.

[Alyssa]

here are some of ours as it was being completed...I don't seem to have any with the furniture/toys back in, I will take some tonight

http://ross39pictures.shutterfly.com/299

we finished this earlier this year. it's been great for us because i was able to put most of the toys down there, including a tv with the wii.

our garage is under the house and is the primary way we enter the house. so we finished a mud area with a built in bench where I can corral most of the shoes and coats, and keep hats, book bags, etc. (ok, the book bags still land upstairs most of the time...) this is drywalled and has a (nice ) laminate floor.

from the mudroom there are stairs to the upstairs on the right, on the left is a wide closet where I keep offseason coats, sleeping bags and games. then straight ahead is an L-shaped playroom. there's a couch, papasan chair, end table and TV - then a long shelf w/ compartments for toys. there is also a storage under the stairs where we've ended up putting dress up costumes and the like, and the kids will sometimes use it like a little clubhouse. this is all drywalled and has a berber carpet.

then there is still a narrow (maybe 6 feet?) but long back of the basement which it not finished. in here is our 2nd fridge and then lots of storage - party supplies, Joe's hockey stuff, extra toys, house stuff like paint, etc.