I remember when I was a young student living and studying in London that one of the many places that I lived had a basement, the trouble with many basements is that they can be damp, and boy was this one damp. Many basements in Great Britain are called cellars and can be found in the many small town houses called terraced houses, these houses had been built for the working class people that worked in the large built up areas in large city's and towns in the 19th century, affording cheap accommodation for many people. The basement in these houses was for one thing only in those days it was were the coal was stored coal was cheap in the early years of the 19th century and was the only means of heating the houses.

It was only in the late 1990s that homeowners realized that if they were rid of the damp and cleaned out or decorated the basements that they had one more room in there home. Most terraced houses had only four rooms' two rooms down stairs and two rooms up stairs the bathroom would be built as an extension down stairs next to the small kitchen.

I had never seen a basement until I went and lived down in London I had always lived with my parents in a large five bedroom detached house on a modern estate in the middle of England, it was a little bit of a shock to my system to see and live in a house with a basement.

When I left, London I started a business I buy and let houses, most of my houses are like the ones that I have being describing and they also have yes you have guest it correctly they have basements. In most cases, I have to renovate the property that I buy before I can let them so I have quite an extensive knowledge of renovating a basement seeing that over the past few years I have renovated over twenty. I always leave the basement until I have renovated the rest of the house then I make sure that it is free from any damp. To do this you must make sure that the damp course has not been damaged over time.

If it has then you must seek professional help. Now that that is out of the way it is now time to rewire your basement, you will need new lights and new electrical sockets. A good idea is to fit new plasterboards all the way around the basement, this will give you nice flat walls to wallpaper or just to paint, and it will hide a multitude of sins. I put all the wiring in before I fit the plasterboards' this means that I do not have to make to neat a job of the wiring.

Now that all the wiring and the decorating is done, it is now time to furnish your new room. Moreover, it all depends what you are going to use this room for. Most people will use this additional room as a study or a gym, but there are a multitude of uses for this room. I will list a few. A new bathroom, bedroom, a boys only room or a girls only room, a music room or a media room, and even a utility room.

What ever you use this room for its an additional room that you did not have before and unless you spend way over your budget it has cost you a lot less than having to build an extension.

Learn more about this author, Catherine Lear.
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