New unfinished basement - $30K fair or no?

[DougMac]

I think the huge variable is how much work you're willing and capable of doing. Having someone do framing, drywall, electrical and plumbing can get expensive fast. If you go DIY, make sure you know the appropriate codes. If you sell down the road, you don't want to get whacked by the inspector.

We have a daylight basement. When we built, we left the inside half (the part in the hill) unfinished. It was roughed in for plumbing and some basic electricity. Last year, six years after building, I finished that half, appoximately 1200 sq ft. I constructed two utility rooms, one at each end, two storage rooms, the bigger being 10x12, a kitchen (~8x10) and a home theater, 16x20 plus a small display area on the left that's 6x10.

I started with bare slab floor and poured concrete walls. I drywalled (after framing everything) all but the HT and kitchen. I wanted help with the "nice" areas, especially since I was planning on painting the screen directly on the drywall (which worked out great). I got two estimates. One was for a turnkey job, the other was to hire in someone for me to assist. The first estimate, just for the drywall, was $4200. The guy I hired to assist did all the drywall, installed the suspended ceiling in both rooms, plus did some re-taping upstairs in our great room. He charged me $1500 and I bought the materials. We ended up hanging 38 sheets of 4x12 drywall.

If you're patient and ingenious, you can save a lot. I bought practically new kitchen cabinets from a business that closed. I bought Kraftmaid cabinets, counter tops and all plumbing for $400. I had to recut the counter tops, but they worked! I ended up spending far south of half of what you're budgeting, including all electronics, but I spent many weeknights and almost every weekend for 7 months working on the project and did almost everything myself.