Basement Remodel in Progress

Have you wondered about remodeling your basement? Could you use the extra living space? Would it improve the value of your home and would you get the bang you require for your buck? What are the things one needs to consider when remodeling a basement?

As a designer and a contractor, you think it would be a no-brainer for me to remodel my own basement; power for the course. What really happens with most people indulging personally in their own professions is that old adage "the cobbler's family has no shoes." When I started my business out of my house, my mother was famous for coming in and saying, "I hope you don't have client meetings at your house." While I am making my clients' design fantasies come true, my house is pretty much as it was when we moved in 8 years ago and added on to with 3 kids, 2 dogs, various rodents at various times, an outdoor cat, and 3 chickens. Oh, and did I mention I love gardening? Iwould much rather dig in the dirt than housework. And my husband and I are very good at avoiding house work if we can play instead. So you can understand my mother's sentiment however rude and unsupportive. Could we commit and stay invested in a remodel to the end? I know if it wasnt for my husband, I would be happy still living out of cardboard boxes and consider piles of things as "organized".

This brings me back to the question of whether remodeling my basement was a no-brainer for me. It wasn't. I had to review with my husband - were we ready to commit mentally and physically? We had to review why we wanted to remodel our basement. The economy we had when we started(2008/2009) was a big factor. I was downsizing my design office and moving it home. (The design & construction industry was screeching to a whiplash halt and the overhead would've killed my business.) I needed a home office. Our children were outgrowing their 10'x10' playroom which also doubled as my husband's home office. We needed an additional bathroom and I secretly fantasized about a laundry room where we didnt have to pick our laundry up off of a concrete floor under the light of a bare bulb nor have to walk around our main sewer waste pipe to put the washing into the dryer. We had to review our finances. We came to the realization that if we didn't do the remodel, we couldn't function as a sane family and I couldn't run my business professionally. And, in our neighborhood, a basement remodel would significantly increase the value of our home instantly. It was a sound investment. This, in a way, made our decision a "no-brainer". "We" became one of my clients.

I had to design within a budget event though it was my own house because we couldn't afford the real showplace all people think designers should be living in. So, I had to come up with a "showplace" design on a budget. That was usually power for the course with every project I worked on. To keep costs down, we did a lot of the labor ourselves. As a contractor, I was used to that, but my husband was not. He is a "nervous nelly". Nervous about tackling big jobs he knows nothing about and nervous about me because he knows how I like to jump feet first into any project and figure out what to do next... next. My husband is a perfectionist and I am a one-foot-in-front-of-the-other-til-its-done-ist. To date, we have worked together well with only a few arguments that we took to our therapist. I have come to appreciate my husband's perfectionism and he has come to respect my ability to create something out of nothing, make it work, and make it look great! He trusts me more now and I have developed more patience for his insistence on thinking things through til he feels comfortable progessing on with the project. My husband only has Plan A, where I am always armed with Plans B, C, D, E, etc when I start a task. Plan A usually costs less money altho Plan B should be considered as well at the start of any new task. You see things you didnt see before in the design/planning stage. I do believe in the evaluation of each task before starting ; cross t's and dot i's. I have a good example of this further in the remodel blog.

In evaluating the feasibility of our basement remodel, we had to consider the following as anyone should when thinking about their basement viability:

Ceiling Height -high enough for code and livability?
Light - natural and artificial - what can you handle?
Safety Egress - if you are having a family room or bedroom in the basement- code.
Flooding and dampness - possibility of sewage back-up or dampness that could cause mildew,
mold and other bio-hazards.
Potential for a bathroom and/or laundry
Consideration of an apartment use or duplex use - check all building codes and confer with a
contractor or architect.
Accessibility from main living areas of the house
How will you heat and vent the space?
Existing electrical and plumbing conditions - acceptable or total re-do?

After our initial due diligence, which turned out all favorable, we proceeded with the design for our basement. Our basement was semi-finished with an old 50's rec room and some T&G paneled storage rooms. We designed for my office to be in the old rec room space (with existing fireplace), a storage room under the stairs (always a good place for storage, bathrooms, or wet bars), a family room for the kids with adjacent bathroom, laundry room where existing laundry was, but with a better configuration, and a giant storage/utility room for all of my STUFF. Heaven! A girl loves her simple pleasures.

Finishes would be simple, affordable, but dynamic and a showplace for future clients. I am a designer after all. We also had to consider keeping the basement light filled and well-lit. I grew up playing in a dungeon basement and totally did not want my basement and my office to feel that oppressive. We would do as much of the work as possible and re-use materials as we could. We would also shop sales, the rebuilding centers, and wheel and deal with my suppliers. We would also try to keep our marriage together through this remodel - a true test of the stability of any relationship.

The following progress pictures and reports show how we did all that we set out to do. At the end, I will reveal how much everything cost and how long it took us to complete. Please read additional blogs posted for more information.

Why You Should Hire Professionals to Save You Time & Money

In all the years I have been in the design and building field, I have had occassion in which I have had to "save" a project. I think all designers, architects, and builders have all had to do this at one time or another. I've had to take over design direction from other designers, I've had to flesh out bare-bone building documents created by architects and I have had to take over construction projects when the contractor has been fired or abadoned the job, always taking the owner's money in the process. I am in the special situation of being both a Professional designer and a licensed General Contractor. More and more professionals are obtaining both specialities, but as a woman, I am still a minority in this instance.

I cannot stress enough the importance of hiring a professional interior design and/or architect and a licensed General Contractor with licensed subs for your construction project. What may seem like a large up front expense to begin your project will end up tripling and getting you in the shorts by the end of you project if you fail to do so. I will have to look it up, but there is a telling quote that runs something like this:
"Pay for quality, cry only once
Pay for crap and cry everytime you see it."
Once I find it again, I will post it.

Your home is your investment, both financially and emotionally. Respect that.
You project does not have to cost a million dollars, but all successful projects start with good planning. That costs money. Its an investment. You are hiring people that will save you money in the end and are looking out for your best interests because their reputation is extremely important to them and you are their most valuable asset in referrals.

Professionals will thoroughly design your project, assess pitfalls and barriers, and take care of all issues before any construction starts. With professionals, you can esitmate the cost of your project from the beginning and have tools in which to asses the bids that you receive from general contractors or subcontractors. Designers and architects do offer services to assist homeowners with bid reviews to make sure all of the numbers are relative and within current cost estimates regionally and nationally.

Whatever you think your project will cost, multiply that by three to be fiscally safe. Planning a remodel is like planning a wedding. Unforseen conditions will add costs and something, at least one thing, will go wrong. Its how you, your designer and your contractor handle what goes wrong that will make the solutions successful. There is also a phrase that my father likes to use called "creeping elegance". You will want to keep redesigning your project as you go along. You will want to add, change, subtract, buy more, etc. If you are on a budget, stay within that budget as best you can. Designers and Architects can help you plan your remodel in phases if necessary to fit your budget. Ask the questions, pose the possibilities. This is your boat with your consultants on board helping you move it forward.

But always remember its your boat and you are in charge. Dont hesitate to ask questions, call in numbers, or stop your project if you think necessary. Everyone who works on your project is just a person, a human being. They are not God, they dont have more authority than you over your project. They may have more experience and expertise, but they work for you and this is your boat.

I say this pointedly to a lot of women as well. Even my most professional CEO women clients get shaking hands and flushed faces when talking to a designer or contractor. WE are the mystery behind the curtain, but you all know what happened when the curtain was drawn back. Just a human being who knows how to operate the controls. The construction industry is still mostly men, granted. That doesnt mean they know everything, its just the evolution of the profession. As more women become contractors, the great mystery becomes de-mystified and women find that they can do all that men can do in this field. Do we want to? Hell no!! We work smarter, not harder. Did you know that a woman invented the first continous cutting saw? Fashioned similar to a spinning wheel. Working smarter, not harder.

Alot of my blogging will focus on women as the clients. A lot of my clients are women. I am a woman. Please take my comments in that vein.

Please look for future blogs about hiring Professional for design and construction.

TTFN!