What's the worst home renovation I see? The ineptly "finished" garage-to-living-room conversion. The second worst? The ineptly "finished" basement-to-whatever conversion. My theory is this. People think: Well, the space is there, how can I screw it up? They think: it's got four walls, a floor, and a ceiling, how much work do I really need to put into it?
Problem is, when you're finishing a basement, you're dealing with a parallel universe. In this parallel universe, the walls aren't really walls. They are earthen sponges dripping with water, barely held back by masonry. The ceiling isn't a ceiling. Your ceiling is just the floor above, often madly interlaced with pipes and wires. The floor is a container-in-waiting for the next flood waters.
So you need to think differently about this basement universe, and take different measures. Under the Black & Decker imprint, Creative Publishing has something called The Complete Guide to Finishing Basements. They don't monkey around there; no fancy footwork. It tells you how to finish your basement. It's complete. Capiche?
So complete that if you happen to own other Black & Decker guides, you will find some repeated material. So complete that much of the information within the book itself is extraneous. For example, the guide lays out a host of flooring possibilities. If you decide to go with the carpeting option, then you have 40 pages of material describing the other options that have suddenly become extraneous. But there's another way to look at this. Without having each option laid out in painstaking detail, you cannot make an informed choice about which one to go with. For example, looking at all the steps involved at laying wall-to-wall carpet, you may say to yourself: No way would I ever want to do that!
But that's what we mean by "complete." If you're finishing your basement, just buy the book and be done with it.
Image Copyright Creative Publishing; Courtesy Creative Publishing
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1. Measure the available space. Decide how various areas will be used. Measuring most basements is relatively easy. With a little practice you can easily work out the total square footage of the space you have to work with. Having the square footage available is also very helpful when estimating the materials you will need.
* Rectangular rooms are relatively simple to measure. First sketch out the room, marking the position of any existing windows, doorways, stairs and utilities. Please be sure to also draw in any poles that may be used for support. Measure the length and width of the basement remembering to include the depth of any alcoves or other recesses. You may need to split your space up into more manageable squares in order to get a more precise square footage. After you have made your simple sketch, just multiply the width times the length to calculate floor space and repeat the same process with the walls to calculate wall area.
2. Sketch out different ways to divide up the space and get the most use out of it.
3. Contact a professional contractor and get an idea of what it would cost to do it yourself or to have a professional build it for you.
4. If possible, use a laser level to make a reference line around the basement. They are relatively inexpensive (around $40), and will give you a true measurement around the space. Poured concrete basements can deviate as much as one inch from one end to the other, but a laser level will give you a more precise reference for measurements.