by Plainenglish

Created on: February 26, 2009

The first thing to consider when finishing a basement is its purpose, as is the single greatest factor that will impact on the design and cost. Is this a place for guests to stay, a den for you or the kids, a gym, office, music room or playroom? For a gym, you may want one large space with a separate smaller room for a toilet and shower. Similarly, a playroom may be one simple space, again with a separate toilet and hand basin. If have enough space, however, you can erect stud walls and design a multi-functional space to suit your needs.

I had around one thousand square feet to play with and wanted my basement to have a guest room, bathroom, wet room (for the dogs!) and a living space for relaxing and reading. When considering the layout a good tip is to use tape to mark out the rooms and even place furniture inside the spaces to get a better feel for whether the flow and the size of the rooms works.

Those of us lucky enough to have an unfinished basement in our home may not realise what we have got until it's gone however storage. Whilst finishing a basement is the perfect excuse for a good clear-out, it is also hugely important to build storage in to your design. You can do this with inbuilt open shelving and built-in cupboards. Awkward spaces, such as under stairs, can be cleverly utilised. I built a false chimneybreast into my living space with a custom built wooden fire surround and, in the alcoves either side, added built-in shelving. This was then used to house the hundreds of cookery books I owned and also to display ornaments. I also used baskets on the shelving for aesthetic appeal but also to store smaller items. The small bathroom had a toilet, hand basin and walk-in shower, which I built with a solid wall so that I could put built in shelving in the space between the two walls.

I was living in Canada but am English and wanted a little bit of England in the basement. I created this by adding lots of pained woodwork, including eight inch deep baseboards, tongue and groove panelling in the living area, and detailed window and door casings. I had the doors on the cupboards built from scratch to my own design and used lots of crisp white on the woodwork, with soft muted tones on the walls. It is important to maximise the light in a basement room and I found greens and golds worked really well as they are light reflective yet warm.

You also need to consider the floorings carefully. I chose a terracotta tiled floor for the entrance, as this lead from the garage to the dog's wet room. This was continued into the bathroom but the living and bedroom areas were carpeted in a natural sisal floor covering.

The space I created was both practical, as it was used for our many guests, but also personal, as with a little creativity and imagination I made it my own little sanctuary. It also added a great deal of value to our home and definitely was the selling point when we sold it.

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