If you live in a small house, you might be eying the basement for a little additional living space. Sure, there are challenges to basements: small windows, low ceilings, mechanical systems, unfinished space that requires renovation:
But if you can work around these drawbacks (what design isn't made better by the problems it's presented with, anyway?), the basement can be a wonderful place to pick up some extra square footage. Here, we see the basement used for everything from living rooms to laundry rooms, bedrooms to offices. See how each room overcomes the baggage that basements always bring at Canadian House & Home.
Ellen's Thirties Style Small Space
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The major challenge for most basements is moisture. Before you do anything, even if your basement is currently completely dry, I think it is safest to assume that at some point - under some unforeseen conditions - there is going to be water. Use that as your starting point and then work from there.
In our old house, the basement was dry (we were on a hill, but things DO happen!). I painted the walls with one of those expanding sealer paints meant for the task before we had framing and dry wall installed. It seemed a bit warmer right away, just from the minimal humidity control that gave. It's an extra expense in a dry basement, but when our lawn sprinkler system burst a pipe just the other side of the foundation, it all seemed worth it!
We only had one tiny window (facing west, though -- gave a surprising amount of light) but with can lights installed and a suspended ceiling, it was a pretty comfortable 'family room' space.
Most homes in LA don't have basements :(
These pictures are beautiful, makes me want to move so that I can have a basement!
Moved into our duplex (1st floor and finished basement) in the mid-west after a gut rehab, and the developer put no kinds of moisture prevention in the basement (plus many other corners cut). Needless to say the expensive hardwood floors we put in the basement (instead of carpet for allergy reasons) completely warped due to large areas of moisture and water build up. After a long battle with the developer (with lawyers) we got a LITTLE money back to fix the problem.
Our solution was to install drain tile along the edges of the basement to direct water to the sump pump (there was some piping for drain tile installed by the developer, but it did not work, and was just for show). We then found a product called Delta Floor systems? which are large sheets of plastic with dimples facing down to allow airflow between the dimples, so no moisture in the air get trapped in one place, and also and provides a barrier between the concrete and flooring. We then lay engineered hard wood floors on top of the Delta... the engineered hard wood is like plywood with different layers and grains going in opposite directions which helps to resist the warping that happens with regular hard wood floors.
It's been just about 2 years now and so far we haven't had moisture issues (fingers crossed) through high humidity and rain storms.
So, the moral of my long drawn out story is... if you are going to finish a basement, do as much research on moisture prevention as possible, even if you decide on carpet, as mold then becomes the big problem. Don't cut corners or skimp on water proofing, it always turns out to be more expensive and a huge hassle in the long run.
Oh, and did I say I HATE developers in Chicago! Be very cautious of new construction! Just because it looks beautiful with new up graded appliances and finishes doesn't mean there are no problems behind the dry wall, in the plumbing and under the floors... get your own inspectors! There seams to be a serious problem with property developers in Chicago... everyone I know who owns a new condo has had some major issues. Moisture was just one of the issues in our place. We also had to get new roofs, install a sewage ventilation system (Yes, the develop did not put one in!) etc...
Our 85 year old Los Angeles house actually has a basement... the past owners dug out the crawl space underneath the house and created quite a large room. But they never finished the work and then we moved in! We so want to make this extra living space, but first we have to make sure that everything is earthquake safe (basements in LA mean there is diminished seismic safety) and then we basically have to do a ton of work to finish it off - and hopefully make it accessible from the upstairs! I think it will be worth it though in the end to have that extra 400 or so square feet especially since it is so rare to have that space in this city!
The fabric in photo number two is wonderful. That said, I don't think a number of these photos are of basements.
I live in an old house with a very deep basement in New England, where it's cold & wet much of the year. It's deep for a reason, we sit on a ledge with an underground spring & stream passing through. I would never even dream of refinishing our space, and choose items for storage very carefully. We had French drains installed a few years back and it was worth every penny, but it will never be livable space. Before the drainage was re-designed, the basement was often ankle deep in water even after modest rains. I think people can be unrealistic about what's possible in basements in wet areas of the country.
I completely agree!
The basement has saved us on more than one ocassion. Great article, and don't ever underestimate your basement lol
Lisa J ASIB.org
What's the point of life said the guy up there? There is no point he said!