Thinking About Finishing the Basement- 7 Inexpensive Tips

One of the best ways to utilize the most out of the space that your home has to offer is to finish your basement. In most homes, the basement is much similar to a dungeon.

The walls are bare and most of the time just concrete, while boxes and unused items are stored there until you need them.

Here we will guide you on finishing the basement and remodeling it into something interesting.

Needless to say, the basement usually holds mold, mildew, and basically the nightmare of an allergy sufferer. So, in order to alleviate this problem and get some usable space that you will be glad to show off to visitors, you need to completely revamp your basement.

Things You Need Before Finishing the Basement

Moving on to a finished basement from an unfinished basement takes effort, time, and money. It is better to plan early and in an organized manner. Here are the 7 things that you need to do before even starting to finish the basement.

1. Find Out Why do you Need It

If you are thinking about finishing the basement or decided then it is important to find out why do you need it? Because this will cost you money and planning ahead will save you a lot of costs.

The first step is to decide why do you need it? What purpose it is going to serve? You want a recreation area for the kids, a work-from-home space, a bar, a playing room, a guest room, etc. This will help you find out the cost, design the rooms, floor, and other things.

2. Needs and Wants

the next step is to finalize the needs and wants for the space. You need a recreation room with a bar attached and a bathroom or you want to move the laundry to the basement or add rooms.

You decide what you want to do with the basement. You can use it as a combination of multi-use space rather than many individual rooms. You don’t need to be extravagant about the designs. A simple functional bathroom is sufficient you don’t need to make it a luxury.

3. Budget

After you cover the step-1 and 2, then you will have to finalize the budget. You have to figure out how you are going to manage the cost of the basement renovation. Are you going to use your savings, borrow money or finance it by some other means?

Budgeting will help you get quotes and costs from contractors for building materials, labor, and equipment.

You don’t have to do it in a single shot if you are tight on budget. You can plan it to do in a phased manner. You can renovate or finish a part of the basement each year. That way it will not overburden your financials and the work will be done.

4. Making the Floor Plan

The last and the most important step is to make the floor plan. It is very easy and with some guidance, you will be able to draw a floor plan for your basement. Once a floor plan is ready you can start asking for quotes from contractors or material costs from the shop.

You need a measuring tape, marker, paper to note the dimensions and then upload these data into Google Sketch or Floorplanner to draw the floor plan.

5. Clean The Area

So your first order of business is to clean the area, remove all dust bunnies and then move the boxes out of the way so you can easily get to the walls. Then, you just put up drywall, and you are set.

This is exactly what most people do, and then they wonder why they have problems with the basement. There is a correct way and a wrong way to do the process. 

6. Fix any Water Problem

• First, you will want to make sure that you have no water problems. When you go down to the basement and dress in water gear such as boots up to your knees and maybe even a life jacket, then you have a water problem. So your first step is to fix this water problem.
• Though you can try to do this yourself, it is best to seek a professional, if not then you may just have the problem later after you fix the walls and it will just cause an even bigger mess.

7. Drywalls

• Once the water problems are dealt with you need to calculate just how much drywall and how many furring strips you will need. Furring strips are what you use to attach the drywall to the concrete wall.
• For every four feet of the wall, it is advised to use one piece of drywall. And for every piece of drywall, you will need one furring strip.

• Once you begin to install the drywall, place some insulation between the concrete wall and the drywall. This will help to regulate the temperature in your basement and will add to the value of your home if you ever choose to sell.

• Once you have screwed the drywall into a furring strip, you need to take some drywall compound and place this between the sheets of drywall. This needs to be around three inches wide, place drywall tape onto this, then follow with another layer with the compound.
• Wait for this to dry and make sure to get the wall as smoother out as possible, which may require several hours. Then decorate, however you want and you have successfully finished your basement.