...we had an unfinished basement...
...and today...
...we still do!
When we bought this house we knew we were going to have the basement finished. We just didn't realize it needed to happen sooner rather than later. Erik has had his “office” down there since the end of May. It's just not the ideal workspace. It's cold and it has regular rodent visitors - ack! Shortly after his decent into the dungeon we purchased some software to help us devise a floorplan. I located the builder's original plan for our basement but it didn't work for us. So, with the Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Suite Version 8.0, and armed will a slew of measurements I took from the basement, I came up with something that I felt would work for us. The software ran us $96.65 (includes tax).
We brought in some contractors to give us an estimate on our plan. Prices ranged from 22K up to almost 37K and none of the plans included the specific fixtures we wanted (read “mo money“). We knew we could cut costs by altering our plan, downgrading the fixtures and eliminating much of the recessed lighting. Not wanting to compromise our plan, we bega looking at acting as our own GC. We aquired a copy of Remodeling a Basement from the “Build Like a Pro“ Series. I don't have that receipt in front of me but I think it was under $17 including shipping. The book was $15.92 including shipping. After reading the book we began to think that maybe we could do a lot of the work ourselves. So, that is now the direction we're heading.
We've looked up permit/code requirements for our county and have drawn up the plans to meet code. Because we aren't going with the builder's original plan for the basement we will have to do some digging to bring our egress window to code for a bedroom. The utility companies should be out some time this week to mark the area before we dig. We're waiting on a call from the city regarding fees before we apply for the permit. In the meantime we are working at emptying the basement which will mean relocating Erik's office.