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Originally Posted On: https://cordlessdrillguide.com/basement-remodel/

 

Your basement is raw, unfinished, and has so much potential.

So what are you going to do about it?

Since it’s just a shell right now, or partially finished at the very least, you have a mostly blank canvas to work with right now.

You could put in the time, effort and money into making it awesome, but everyone needs an end goal to work towards.

These basement remodel ideas give you a vision, something to think about and weigh your options in terms of price, work, and how long it’s going to take.

If you really want to make the most out of your basement, it’s time to take a look at what you could do. It’s time to make a decision.

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#1 Bar And Billiards

Maybe you hung out in the basement as a kid with your friends, or you’ve always wanted to bring that bar-style atmosphere into your home: whatever the case is, now’s your chance.

You can remodel your entire basement into a bar atmosphere by keeping things simple, wooden, and rustic.

By rustic I mean partially unfinished, but safe.

Bars are old, dusty places that have their charm based on how rough and rugged they look. It’s not a difficult style to emulate in your very own basement.

#2 Media Crazy

Everyone wants a bigger TV and a better way to play their PlayStation 4, or watch movies with the family.

Making your basement into a media room gives your entire household something to love, and it’s not overly difficult to do.

You want nice clean lines and soft colors, like a light gray or dull blue, so that the focus is on the screen.

This is the perfect opportunity to put your DIY know-how to the test and build a media cabinet, designed to fit your television and media players.

If you want to get crafty, you can keep the central areas of your DIY media cabinet empty with a white wall behind it and mount a projector from the other side of the room.

#3 Gallery

Not an art gallery, per se, but a place to display things that you really enjoy.

The basement isn’t being used for anything right now, right?

You could turn it into a space where your high school trophies have a designated, aesthetic place to sit.

Paintings, portraits of your family, whatever it is: put them on display, on the walls, and turn it into a nice place that you can show your guests.

#4 Library

Heavy into reading?

Having a library in your own home is a fantasy for most people, but it usually just ends up being a few bookcases that collect way too much dust.

Basements are notoriously dank places, but if you’re careful, you can finish this space and turn it into an indoor escape.

You would need to install a dehumidifier to keep everything at the right humidity and preferably the right temperature.

This is a good chance to create custom bookshelves and built-ins, use some soundproofing on the walls, and create a sitting area.

This could be used as a space for your children to study, or for you to get a half-hour each day to relax and do what you love.

#5 Entertainment Space

It doesn’t have to be a bar, but it could be a space to bring your guests after meals have been had.

An entertainment space could work for graduations, christenings, celebrating the introduction of a new life into your family—it could be the go-to place that your family relies on (provided that your basement is big enough) when they want to gather ‘round and celebrate something.

For this, you could include a lofty seating area as well as a table and chairs.

You could include a bar, but you could also have a separate seating area with a couch, chair and coffee table to give people the option of how they’d like to sit.

It would make your home a lot more functional.

#6 Game Room

Whether it’s for you or your kids, you have an opportunity to put shelves in and place board games, or you can put a television in, but at the end of the day the goal can be to make it a fun space.

Game consoles, PCs, board games, a pool table—there’s a lot that you can do here. You can run with this idea.

For a game room, you’re going to want darker colors to cancel out too much bright lighting and glares from the background (PC/TV gaming), as well as blinds if you have half-windows that poke above ground.

We’re in 2020, so there’s no reason that you can’t also make it into a streaming space with LED strip lighting and a background.

#7 Toy Room

It’s not the most exciting thing for you or your significant other, but it could be a great space for your little ones.

Under cabinet lighting, plenty of overhead lighting, built-in toy boxes, and plenty of cushioned carpeting.

You could do so much with this space, but keep in mind that it will eventually upgrade to a space for teens.

Find a way to make this a versatile space that you can one day upgrade to a more mature space.

In the meantime, consider a built-in playhouse, ball pit, and other things that your kids’ friends aren’t going to have. It’s going to be a talking point for sure.

#8 Workshop

If the garage isn’t doing it, then that’s okay: you can still turn your basement into a full-fledged workshop.

You have to take some safety precautions into account, such as emissions and other issues that you don’t want arising.

Having a basement workout may limit what you can do, unless you install interior electric fans and better ventilation if you want to use some power tools or sanders.

Workshops don’t have to be over-the-top fantastic.

They don’t have to be ultra finished; you can leave them a bit rugged and rustic if you want, but the point here is to make them functional.

Ensure that you create a space that can have hidden power cables (that are still accessible if need be), and promote the right safety features, especially if you have wandering little ones in the house.

#9 Office Workspace

The number of people who work from home or work remotely is growing rapidly.

Freelancing and remote positions are becoming a normal thing, and in all of that, you need a dedicated workspace with no distractions.

If your kids are home with your spouse during the day, you can’t just pull up a laptop on the kitchen counter and expect to get anything done.

You need to have dedicated, distraction-free space.

Soundproofing is going to be big here, and you’re probably going to have to run some electrical.

For an office workspace in your basement, everything is going to need to be super finished and refined: you can’t really cut corners here, because a half-finished space is going to be distracting as can be.

At the end of the day, it should look like a rented office space—clean and clear, easy to think and work in.

#10 Home Gym

This is a big one.

A home gym is expensive in terms of the equipment that you have to put into it, but even after that, you have to think about flooring, mats, ventilation, dehumidification, and so many other things.

Making a home gym isn’t a simple task, but it’s something that you, a DIY warrior, can absolutely tackle.

Home gyms give you the ability to cancel your membership and just workout from home.

No commuting, no more monthly fees—depending on the equipment, you could be saving money in comparison in the long haul.

That investment might take a few years, but even then, you could later convert your home gym into another space since it will have the ventilation necessary for any comfortable space, such as a home office.

#11 Bowling Alley

Remember when you were a kid and you thought it would be awesome to have a bowling alley in the basement?

Well, now you can. It’s not that difficult to build a bowling alley once you know how to lay some flooring, and create the backing so that your bowling balls don’t tear a hole in the drywall.

Having your own bowling alley is great because you can choose one, two, or more lanes depending on your available space and how much work you want to put into this.

Of course, you don’t have to make a bar counter to rent shoes from or those weird seats, or even a ball return if you don’t want—you can make this budget-friendly and small, so you can retrieve your own ball and do some simple candlepin instead of regulation bowling down here.

#12 Prepping Basement

Do you grow your own food? Can it? Jar it? Are you into prepping and storing water, emergency food, and a backup power source of a dozen 36V batteries all hooked up to one another?

Whether you just want to have some peace of mind when a disaster rolls in, or you want to go full-on with prepping for the end of time, your basement is the perfect place to do this.

You can create a small area to can, jar, or dehydrate your own foods here with a countertop area.

There’s a lot of room here to have a storage pantry, room for deep freezers, and an area to store your non-perishables and just stock up on essentials.

With any prepping storage area, you want ventilation to prevent mold, and humidity control to ensure your food doesn’t go bad, all of which can be worked into your renovation.

#13 Extended Master Bedroom And Suite

Just don’t have enough space to put that California king-sized bed you always wanted?

Most people don’t have that much space, but you can turn your entire basement, or at least half of it, into an enormous bedroom designed for royalty.

If you’re doing this with your wife in mind and you want to make something down there that you know she’s going to love, there are a lot of options for this one.

You could make a master suite with a small seating area for you and your wife, which leads up to the bed area, and a separate master bathroom with a jacuzzi tub.

Sound expensive?

I’m not saying this one is cheap, and it’s surely ambitious with all the electrical and plumbing work you would have to put in, but it could be the very best use of your space: hear me out.

You’d be adding one bedroom and one bathroom to your property.

Even if you don’t plan on moving anytime soon or at all, you have to admit that adding that to your home will bump up the value immensely, especially if your current master bedroom has an attached master bath.

Those become like bonus areas and the basement becomes almost as awesome of a selling point as the kitchen.

Make It Your Own

It’s time for a change of pace—there’s nothing wrong with that.

Your basement can be anything you want, if you put in the time and understand the right codes to abide by when installing electrical outlets, additional plumbing, and understanding where you are in terms of potential flooding (nobody wants to put in all that work for mother nature to tear it up).

You’ve got a full rolling tool chest.

Now it’s time to put it all to good use, and make something truly fantastic out of that unfinished basement.