Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

We will be finishing our basement at some point. First we will convert from oil to gas and get rid of that big ol tank

The basement is 950 sq ft, the one wall that is down there can be taken down.

What would YOU do if you were finishing you're basement?

We have one 2 yr DS and plan on another. We have a small playroom upstairs upstairs in our "sunroom" but would likely have a play area in the basement also.

Things are are thinking: den area, bar area, play area, gym area...

We have three full bathrooms but everyone says we should put at least a 1/2 bath in basement, thoughts?

any pics of you're finished, fabulous basement would be great!

Message edited 9/27/2013 8:37:45 AM.

Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

If you can afford to put a half bath down there, I would. Especially if you plan on having a play area down there it would be easier for your DS to use that bathroom than hauling him upstairs every time..

Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

I have a finished basement with a playroom. Have a tv down there.

My one idea would be to put down tile. Carpet and laminate is nice (I have laminate) but basements are notoriously damp and prone to water issues. If I had the money to spare, I would have tile and then some durable area rugs.

I don't find a bathroom a necessity to be honest - one less bathroom to clean and maintain. But that's just my take on it.

Do you have closets down there for storage? Or shelving units?

And congrats on going to gas - so much cheaper than oil!! :)

Message edited 9/27/2013 9:26:02 AM.

Re: Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

Re: Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

We have a play area, den and excersize area in the basement. It's nice bc I can exercise downstairs while the boys play. We also have a camera too. My 4 yr old can go down by himself for a short time if he likes (sometimes after I workout he wants to play in the kitchen or the train tables) so I can still keep an eye on him. I don't allow my 2 yr old alone or even with his brother yet. LOL! Don't trust that combo.
We also have a bedroom and full bath. I LOVE having it. With kids why not have a bathroom?!
As the PP said about having another bathroom... it's NOT bad at all. Doesn't get used a lot so when we go up a quick once over is fine. You have to go down and clean the basement once in a while anyway. Just keep cleaning supplies in there.
We have the bar upstairs, but eventually when the boys are older get a movie theatre area and less toys. Maybe a pool table or something.
Enjoy!
As I said though... bathroom makes it sooo much easier. Especially with potty training rather than running up and down or when the kids are older and have friends over. That's why the cameras are good too. LOL

Re: Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

I plan on having a playroom/tv room storage laundry room and at least a half bath if need be it can be where the laundry room is. The reason I want at least a half bath is because the basement will be accessible from outside and I think it will be very convienent to have a bathroom where the kids and If I host parties the guests can go down easily.

Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

We have tile and like it. Also a full bath, office, small laundry room and a large area we separated into family and play areas. We have small storage under the steps and also use the boiler room for storage as we'll.

Re: Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

We plan on finished half. Leaving one side for storage. We are making a den and kitchen/bar area. Den can be used for play as well. 1/2 bath for sure!

Def. tile for the basement. And I would 100% do the 1/2 bath. You will be glad you did when it's done.

Re: Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

1/3 of our basement is unfinished which is storage and has an extra fridge.

Our basement was finished before we bought the house, I think if I did it on my own I would have done a more open layout. We have a separate playroom, bar area and den area. We have carpet but do not have flood/moisture issues. Ill try and post some pics later.

I wish I had a workout area and a bathroom.
A bathroom would be great now with little kids. Also now that we are older when my siblings and I sleep at my parents all together someone always winds up sleeping in the basement and a bathroom would be nice.

The bar that dh and my father built

The den area


The playroom


And weird wasted space area by stairs

Message edited 9/28/2013 8:24:48 AM.

Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

thanks girls allIwant, awesome basement, love the playroom!

Re: Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

Re: Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

We refinished ours

We added 1/2 bath
Storage closet under staircase
Separate laundry room with slop sink, counter tops and cabinets off boiler room (great to hang clothes to dry )
Bar area
Play area
Media area

We do have berber carpet but am working on DH to change to wood or tile

1350 sq ft

Re: Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

You can do whatever your heart desires. As far as I'm concerned, you live in the promised land where you can do anything & your neighbors won't rat you out! When I lived a few blocks away from you, we put down hardwood floors in the basement, just raised it 2 inches off the ground "in case" there was ever water.. there never was. Your area is very dry. 1/2 bath definitely. Storage closets & a huge playroom. My kids lived down there & you'll find it a blessing as yours gets older.
Edited to add: I had a full kitchen because my DH insisted on it. Never used it but my teenaged son did with all his friends every weekend.

Message edited 9/30/2013 11:33:20 AM.

Re: Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

Re: Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

Yes & I can't wait. But its on the other side of our town. My gf knocked down a house & made a center hall colonial & unfortunately got divorced during the process, but its a win-win for all involved.
Closing was suppose to be on 9/1 but you know how that goes... this one went on the market this past Saturday.

Re: Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

Re: Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

I will take pictures of ours. We finished it a few months back.
Here is what we have:
1/2 bath..that was a must for us. I can't imagine company and kids going up and down stairs to use it, especially durning parties.
Small playroom with a door. It can easily be turned into a guest room one day if need be
The rest is open to one another. We have a bar, tv area and then 2 open spaces. We are putting a poker table in one open space.
Cameras, especially in the play room.

We have about 1800 sq. ft. but I think you could still get all of this in 950sq. ft. We have some wasted space.

We also did a laminate and the underlayment has a water barrier. I wasn't putting tile down because it would get to cold. We also have a dry basement so I wasn't worried about moisture . We also have 2 zone heating for the house and took from the 1st floor zone to heat and cool the basement and it hasn't affected the the first floor at all.

Re: Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

We are finishing ours. We have a dormered cape so our stairs are smack in the middle of the basement.

On one side we have a full bath, closet, laundry room w/sink and cabs, and a boiler area (accessible through laundry).

Other side is completely open and I'll just section it into media area/play area.

Storage under stairs.

No bar - I'm keeping our liquor upstairs in the kitchen. Don't need my future teens pilfering my bar. At least in my kitchen it will be harder LOL.

IMO - a bathroom is a MUST HAVE.

Re: Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

We've been talking a lot about finishing our basement lately.

As much as I want a completely open floor plan, we know we need to keep a decent sized area for storage (we have no attic). So the plan is to divide about 1/4th of it off and use that space as the laundry room/boiler room/storage room area. We'll also be putting storage under the stairs.

We'll also add a full bathroom.

I'd also like to put in a sink and bar area, which could double as a mini kitchen in the event we have family or friends staying with us. I don't foresee this happening, but if one of our parents ever needed to stay with us for a long period of time, this would come in very handy.

We're asking a lot out of our basement... playroom, guest suite, office (if we have another kid), movie room, storage area. I want to make sure we plan it out as smart as possible.

As far as flooring, I'll definitely go with those tiles that look like hardwood.

Message edited 10/2/2013 10:49:51 AM.

Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

Thanks so much guys!

We are lucky to have our laundry in our master bedroom en suite so we do not need a laundry area and we have a large attic and gargae so we will have some storage but not a ton.

Love the idea of the tiles that look liek wood!

Re: Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

We had 1/3rd of basement finished but it was damaged by a plumbing issue-YUCK!
Anyway we are planning to finish the entire basement in the near future.
We are relocating our laundry area and making it a finished room & I'm strongly considering a pet washing station
Adding a bathroom even though we already have 3 full baths
A TV/media room which is what we had before the water problem
A bedroom with an egress window
A storage area which includes and area to hold our emergency food & water supply
and another finished area which could be converted into a kitchen in the future.
I have the tile for my laundry room already but I would love to do the wood look tile everywhere else.
Our adult son is learning disabled & has other issues.
although he is living on his own now its a struggle for him so this layout makes an easy conversion to an apartment for him if needed. I would just keep access to the laundry & storage area.

Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

We are going to be doing our Basement soon too. We are putting in a play room, a guest bedroom, a full bathroom and a Bar/Man Cave as my husband calls it LOL. But we have about 1400 Sq Ft to do it all.

Re: Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

radiant heat tile floor. Our basement was finished when we bought it and the tile down there is so cold. I wish we could have a radiant heat floor.

Re: Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..

I also want to add we made our windows bigger...

Re: Finishing the basement..must haves and ideas..