Finishing a Basement?

[crackinhedz]

Originally Posted by louhamilton

Can you ask the previous home owner at this stage?

Not unless I see him at closing time.

Honestly, I did not see anything else...inside or out...that might possibly be a sump pump. Maybe its wired for one, just in case?

oh well.



Anyways, I really wanted to get the basement dimensions so I could draw up some sort of floor plan to brainstorm ideas of possible room placement. Most likely I will have to wait to move in for any of that.

Now I just have my fingers crossed the Bank ok's the loan. I would hate to have spent $300 for a home inspection and not even get the house?!!

[Dase]

Originally Posted by crackinhedz

Ok guys, my offer on a house was accepted today! Probably won't close until next month...and probably wont finish the basement for a very long time...

But can anyone give me some pointers??

I would love to finish the basement myself to save a lot of money, but I will most likely end up paying someone since I don't have the free time, supplies, or even the knowledge to do it myself.

So I was wondering, what would be the best way to go about it?? The basement is HUGE. Square foot wise I would put it around 1000 sq. ft. (probably more). Obviously I would like a Theater room, and most definitely a play room for my son.

Anyways, who does this kind of work? What would their title be called?? in other words, how would I look them up in a phone book?

Also, I think there is electrical wiring already in place, but im sure for a theater I will need more and in certain spots. So would the guy who does the finish work also do electrical, or would I need to hire an electrician?? also what about AC and Heat?


Honestly, my dream is pretty far down the road but I want to make sure I have it planned out right.

Also, if anyone knows someone who does this kind of work in the Lynchburg, VA area at a decent price please let me know!


Thanks guys.

Hey there! First of all... Congrats on your house!!!!!

I haven't read the rest of this thread and I just stumbled upon it tonight, but I have some advice for you that you may want to consider. I bought my house about 2.5 years ago and my basement was also unfinished, although a bit smaller than yours (800 sq. ft).

The main thing is that if you don't need the whole thing finished at once, then DON'T think about it like that . You can always do a room or a space at a time. If you do end up paying someone, ask if you can observe and/or work with them so you can learn at the same time. I saved a ton of money just learning and doing some of the easier tasks myself (drywall, paint, finish, some framing, basic electrica, windowsl) and having some of the more difficult ones done for me (plumbling, electrical, shower).

The best thing about it is that it is YOUR house . So you can try things and change things as much as you want. Obviously there are budget constraints and you don't want to take on anything crazy by yourself, but there are many things that you can do that you may think you can't. I had no experience in alot of these things when I bought my house and now I am fairly handy and competent, I'm sure this is true for most homeowners. I have gone back and fixed or improved some of the things I did at the start as I have got better at them over time .

I finally finished mine off in the spring, the bathroom was the final part. I'm just saying that if you are open to learn and work on some of it yourself it is very rewarding. Have fun with it!

This thread will be great to see your progress and how it turns out. Congrats again!

[crackinhedz]

Originally Posted by -dase-

Hey there! First of all... Congrats on your house!!!!!

Thanks for the kind words and inspiration!

if you are open to learn and work on some of it yourself it is very rewarding. Have fun with it!

I love learning new things, and I have built a couple of things before and definitely know what you mean about it being rewarding. Which is why I have decided to give this project a go myself.

This thread will be great to see your progress and how it turns out. Congrats again!

It will be a LONG time in the making as I don't have the extra cash for the materials yet nor the free time with work and new baby...but Im thinking I will just do one room at a time like you mentioned.



Once I get a better idea of the basement size and layout, I would love everyones advice/info on what steps I will need to take to accomplish each task.

Im off to bed now, but thanks for the reply's

[Rustmonkey]

Plumbing and electrical aren't all that difficult - if you're daunted by it, hardware stores generally have a pretty good selection of books that walk you through all the basics... I finished my mother's basement on her new house and did pretty much everything except installing the plumbing in the concrete for toilets and cutting the concrete for the egress windows... you'll probabley want to hire that out Everything else, you should be able to accomplish with a little reading and the right tools

If you're looking to contract out, a great place to start would be to speak with your realtor, banker, and closing agents as they generally do alot of worker with contractors.

Good luck!

[DougMac]

I can't see your photos right now, I may add comments later.

Here's some thoughts and suggestions.

I built a kitchen, a large storage room and a HT in the unfinished portion of our basement. I did almost all the work myself, starting with concreted floor and poured concrete walls, so I did all the framing, electrical, plumbing, etc. It cost me roughly $5500 altogether for my finished spaces, I'm thinking turnkey would have been triple or more.

I had the carpet and acoustic tiled ceiling installed, plus help with the sheetrock. Shop around. I got a sheetrock estimate of $4500. Through word of mouth we found the husband of one of my wife's co-workers who had just finished as part of a crew of a major commercial job. He was waiting word on another big job. A worked as his sheetrock crew. He did all the finish work. For the sheetrock and to hang the acoustic tile ceiling, he charged me $1,000 plus materials. Sheetrock plus mud was ~$350 and the black ceiling tiles and suspension was around $450.

Things I did right
All in wall speaker wire is run through conduit. If I ever want to add more or change gauge, it will be easy. I used 12 AWG in wall rated speaker wire for my 7.1 system, with the L/C/R wired for bi-amping. I've got 300' of speaker wire in the system. I also ran a conduit for the subwoofer line in cable.

I built a large (10'x12') storage room adjacent to the HT. I built a table in the storage room and mounted an equipment rack on it. The equipment rack is in the wall of the HT. It has a smoked glass door, which I can close to block equipment noise and dim the panel lights. The IR remotes work fine. I can walk up to the back of the equipment rack and easily make any wiring changes.

I didn't buy a screen. We very carefully finished the screen wall. I primed it with Killz, then painted a screen with Sherwin William's "Grey Screen" color (a very light grey). I used the mounted projector to mark the screen area. I went with a 120" diagonal screen, based on room size, viewing distance, projector resolution, etc. BTW, the HT is totally light controlled. We run cinema mode, which is dimmer. In addition to a more film like look, it saves bulb life. The image looks great!

I used black acoustic tile and dark wall colors. This really helps with IQ.

I have 9' ceilings. This really helped with mounting the projector high and with getting the projector offset correct and allowing me to mount the projector level with no need for keystone correction.

The adjacent kitchen is great. We can prepare snacks, wash dinner dishes, and have cold beverages handy. I came across some barely used Kraft Maid cabinets. With counter tops, I paid $400 for all!

Things I would have done differently
The HT is 16x20, plus there's an area to the left. We can comfortably seat six adults and have had as many as 10 watching at once. If I had a big family or more than four adults viewing at once, I would prefer the room to be longer, say 16x24. 18x28 would be even better!

It took me 7 months of a few nights a week plus most weekends to finish. My wife and I are now spoiled. We have better picture quality and much better sound than the local cineplexes. We also have 25 cent popcorn and much better wine!

[bhampton]

Hello,

My basement has no drian and no sump pump.

Concrete is rough. I would not skip the sub-floor. It's not very expensive or hard to install. I also wouldn't put hard wood in a HT but that's just because it seems like it would cause audio problems.

Of course... You gotta do it your way and that's fine. I can't imagine skipping the subfloor though. It's like it goes from being a swimming pool without water (only rougher) to being a normal living space.

EDIT- I can't see your pics. I think my web-filter in installed for the kidz is scared. I'll have to see if I can find some way to force it to trust ya.

=Brian

[crackinhedz]

Yeah, Im still contemplating the sub floor. As much as I want to save money, I like the idea of not having to worry about water damage...even if its highly unlikely.

With the subfloor, when you walk across it does it creek like wood floors??

[bhampton]

I got no creak from my subfloor.

I had carpet installed above it. (I bought a large left over piece of carpet and they priced it near the installed price just to tempt me to have it done.)

I figured the sub-floor would make it warmer and comfy-er and also improve the acoustics. (Echo used to be extreme in the un-finished basement.)

I suppose.... It's easy enough to do later though. I just pulled carpet out of my living room in preperation to DIY hard wood and it's a snap to pull up carpet. (Must be a bit harder to install but thankfully I still don't know.)

Of course... Carpet requires all those boarder strips you have to nail down and doing that into concrete would be ugly. (Unless you glue them.)

Edit- Wood floors don't all creak. Even creaky stairs can (sometimes) be repaired to stop creaking.

-Brian

[Pondosinatra]

Originally Posted by bhampton

Edit- Wood floors don't all creak. Even creaky stairs can (sometimes) be repaired to stop creaking.

-Brian

Creaky stairs are my biggest pet peeve. It doesn't matter what house I've been in, new, old, million dollar show homes etc. all the friggin stairs creak!! I think the only real solution is to make treads and risers out of steel instead of wood.

[Dase]

I have a drain in my basement. I did not do a subfloor. I just did carpet on concrete. The border strips are fine into the concrete, they make special nails for that. Mine turned out fine, not ugly at all. I did use the better thicker pad underneath the carpet. It turned out great. We have been very pleased with the results.

My ceilings in the basement are 7'. This is one of the reasons I elected to not do a sub floor as I would have even less headroom . I also live where I don't need to worry about the water so much.

[KGBeastXxX]

well my guess for a finished basement without the home theater of that size would cost around 15k, that is about how much my basement costand it is 1500 sqft. we have a storage room living area game room(theater) and a bar area.. Really depends on what you want. Not sure where you live but if you live in NY(upstate) my uncle could give you an appraisal.the celings are the square tile kind. easier access to pipes.

[Beta Man]

Also, since I saw you mentioned it.....

Subflooring doesn't prevent the need for proper water-proofing..... if it gets wet, then you get mold etc.

[Darkthrone]

Originally Posted by forsberg21

+1, we had leaks and had to put a french drain in the concrete floor along all along the walls, cost me $10,000! But, no leaks, sump pumps in 2 corners, new window wells, and most importantly, piece of mind! My HT is in the basement as well, and it is nice because I do not have to deal with much light and I ran the wiring before the drywall went up.

By the way, I do not know about your area crackinhedz, but if I were you, I would also invest in a radon test. They are cheap and you can get them from Home Depot. Our area is known for it, but luckily the test results came back low, but safe.

+1 to that...i had a leak in my basement...put in a sump pump, and re-did the landscaping
it would be a nightmare to finish your basement and have water come in and ruin a bunch of stuff

[Beta Man]

Originally Posted by Darkthrone

+1 to that...i had a leak in my basement...put in a sump pump, and re-did the landscaping
it would be a nightmare to finish your basement and have water come in and ruin a bunch of stuff

I've price water-proofing, and it's not in the cards for our home (compared to other alternatives which I've posted about elsewhere) We also live in an area where sump-pumps are prohibited.

[Hammie]

Originally Posted by Beta Man

I've price water-proofing, and it's not in the cards for our home (compared to other alternatives which I've posted about elsewhere) We also live in an area where sump-pumps are prohibited.

We spent almost $10K water proofing our basement around 10 years ago. We got french drains, sump pump, and a skim coat over our field stone foundation on our 1910 home.

We had major seepage coming through the cracks of the stones. Thought originally it was a leaking water heater.

[crackinhedz]

well, its been a few weeks now...and I have not even come close to starting the finish to my basement, might be a loooong time.

But, I did set up my living room. This is a preliminary pic as I have since added a couple lamps that are not shown in the photo. Also my camera does not do any justice. The color is off. My walls are really a light brown, I think the lighting is not very good in the room. Which is why I am gonna wait and take some better pics before I add it to my gallery.

Anyways, after checking out others setup of wall mounted Plasmas/LCD's, I decided to grow some balls and wall mount my 50" Plasma.

One word: Beautiful.

I used -

1. Monoprice PREMIUM Adjustable Tilting 2.5mm Wall Mount
2. Monoprice Recessed Pro Power Kit (to run power and A/V cables behind the wall)

I did this all myself at like 1 AM after a long day/night of work...so needless to say, I was dead tired and made some silly mistakes (but corrected) and lifted the 80 lb tv onto the wall myself.

Anyways, here it is:








...again, my walls are a light moca brown, not the green you see!

I will take better pictures hopefully this weekend to add to my gallery.

[Big Daddy]

Crackinhedz,

It looks nice and professional. My only suggestion is to take that center speaker out of the cabinet and put it on top of it. It may sound a lot better. I know it looks better in there and more pleasing to the WAF, but for crazies like us, sound quality is more important than appearance.

P.S. Is the dog's speakers set to large or small.

[crackinhedz]

Originally Posted by Big Daddy

My only suggestion is to take that center speaker out of the cabinet and put it on top of it.

yeah, Ive been thinking about doing that. The wife really has no say on the matter.

I might give it a go this weekend.