Basements offer a wide variety of design ideas for homeowners. You can easily transform a basement into any type of room you need or want, considering the amount of space available and landscaping surrounding the basement. Before you start a remodeling, finishing and decorating project, you should first establish a solid design plan to ensure you get everything you want from your unused basement space.
Instructions
1. Consider what you want to use the basement space for. Because most of the basement space likely spans the entire width and length or your home, you probably have a lot of room to work with and could even transform the space into several different rooms or areas. Consider the possibilities for the space based on what you need and want: do you need a furnace room, an extra bedroom, a garage; or do you want a bar, your own personal gym or a home theater?
2. Measure the usable space in your basement and draw a blank floor plan of the area on a sheet of graph paper. Use each block of the graph paper to represent 1 square foot of actual space in the basement to give yourself a better visual of the space available. Draw in any existing walls, support beams or columns that you cannot remove from the area.
3. Draw in any walls you want to add to the space to separate different rooms or areas you want to create in the basement. Consider the use of each room when you decide on placement and size. You want to create a larger area for a bar or eating area so that you have room to entertain guests, while an added bedroom must be placed in an area of the basement where you can install an egress window for escaping the home in the event of a fire. If you want to turn your basement into a garage, you must also consider the landscape surrounding your home and how much excavation you require for such an addition.
4. Check your intended floor plan design with a code enforcement officer, fire marshal or other authority to ensure that your design does not compromise your insurance rates or create an unsafe environment. You may have to obtain a building permit and a new blueprint of your house to satisfy the needs of your insurance company.
5. Complete the finishing touches on your design before or during the remodeling project. You'll paint the walls and decorate the room after you finish the remodeling, but use this time to decide on color themes. Remember that lighter colors in a basement help to make windowless rooms seem brighter, while dark colors make a room dimmer. During the remodeling or after, you can decide on the placement of cabinets, tables, chairs, shelves, entertainment devices and other furniture items, though it is a good idea to plan for placement of particularly large or odd-sized items in advance.
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