Finishing a basement without finishing it?

[blahblahblah]

Any artistic or practical ideas for finishing a basement without actually having it finished?  We received a couple quotes for framing, dry wall, electrical and plumbing, intending to do the installation of fixtures, flooring and finishing details ourselves, but the cost is still substantial.

What are some ways to make an unfinished basement seem complete for daily use?  It would ideally be a hangout space with friends, in addition to storage for frequently used equipment and quick conversion to sleeping space for guests.  We may even sleep there in warmer and colder months due to better temperature regulation/ability to reduce dependency on heat and AC.

[sokoloff]

I think most of the steps are well within the realm of even a moderate DIYer. Plumbing is the only thing that I'd think twice about doing it yourself (mostly because the downstream effects of getting that wrong are substantial and it's not always obvious that you did something wrong; most of the other trades, it's pretty obvious if you got it wrong before you walk away).

I don't know your particular experience and willingness to dive in, but since you were thinking of doing the finishing work, it's obviously not zero. Can you have someone come in and do the rough plumbing for you? You should be able to handle the framing, insulation, and rough electrical. Drywall work (and plaster work) is cheap around here, so I'd be inclined to sub that out as they can do it way faster and for not much more money than it would cost me to DIY. Then, flooring, finish carpentry, and fixtures gets you to a usable space. I'm not sure what parts you quoted out, but most of the good trades around here don't want to bother with small one-off jobs for homeowners (and so quote them appropriately high).

[CowboyAndIndian]

Any artistic or practical ideas for finishing a basement without actually having it finished?  We received a couple quotes for framing, dry wall, electrical and plumbing, intending to do the installation of fixtures, flooring and finishing details ourselves, but the cost is still substantial.

What are some ways to make an unfinished basement seem complete for daily use?  It would ideally be a hangout space with friends, in addition to storage for frequently used equipment and quick conversion to sleeping space for guests.  We may even sleep there in warmer and colder months due to better temperature regulation/ability to reduce dependency on heat and AC.

Assuming it is bare bones, this is what I would do (and what I did before finishing my basement)

• Use DryLok to paint the cinder block or concrete walls. This will prevent any future leaks, but also brighten the place up.
• Paint the floor with a good concrete paint
• Usually basements will have just a couple of lights. This makes it look dingy. Add more lights. I got a few shop lights and added three or four of them. You add a bulb outlet adapter to the existing socket so you can connect to these shop lights there.
• Use your steel storage racks as walls to wall off storage areas.You could put plywood sheets on the back of the storage units

Hope this helps.

[lthenderson]

• Use DryLok to paint the cinder block or concrete walls. This will prevent any future leaks, but also brighten the place up.

Drylok may brighten the place up for sure but it will absolutely not prevent water from coming through cracks, holes or other direct openings in your foundation, i.e. where basements typically leak. If you read their warranty it excludes these type of foundation defects. Their warranty only covers surfaces where no cracks, holes, etc are found and then only for 15 years. The only way to prevent that is to waterproof from the outside using hydraulic cement or other similar compounds.

To the OP, I treat my basement as a place to learn new skills where they aren't readily visible to others. I then take my knowledge and use it upstairs where it is visible.

[BudgetSlasher]

It really depends on what you want the end product to be like. My basement has bare concrete walls and floor, ~25 60-watt LED equivalent bulbs, a pool table, a wood stove, a couple gliding rocking chairs, and my supply of homebrew. In addition it has all of the usual basement stuff, laundry, boiler, hot water, upright freezer, wire rack shelves, electrical panel, duct work, and so on.

The single biggest for us was to upgrade the lighting circuit form a measly 7 bulbs to our current 25; it happened over time, a light for the laundry sink, a light for the freezer, a light for the caned goods shelf, and before we knew it hey its pretty well lit down there.

Once you have dealt with the lighting, as other have suggested, painting the concrete will also help it feel less cave-like.

Oh and organization; I have been in basements larger than mine and they are not nearly as comfortable, because things are just strewn about or it is just a mess. your can put a lot of stuff on a couple wire rack shelves and it look so much better.

I would call most of the finishing steps of a basement DIY'able (framing, drywall, flooring, and so on). So your budget and how much time you want to spend are going to be your limiting factors.

[AMandM]

My father's office was in the basement.  He put big styrofoam sheets up against the walls and built bookcases in front of them.  That plus bright lights made for a pretty cosy feeling room.

Whether you can/should DIY depends a lot on how long you want it to take and how much time you can devote to it.  If you don't mind incremental progress, you could do one area/room at a time, which would give you the chance to develop your skills. OTOH, that path might be a huge pain if your jurisdiction requires permits with detailed applications (ours requires drawings of proposed work if any plumbing or electrical modifications are involved!).

[blahblahblah]

Great ideas, thank you!  Partially insulated space, will need to consider more how to "not finish" and still protect the insulation, painting the concrete and floor will be great.  Considering hanging a fabric from the ceiling to cover the insulation and protect from damage of daily use damage in addition to the bookcase suggestion.

Then again, with these ideas, perhaps having the dry wall professionally done and stopping there will be similarly cost effective and more favorable at some eventual resale.

[Fishindude]

I'm a fan of an unfinished basement.  It gives you a whole lot of flexibility.
Would probably wall off an area for furnace room and have laundry and a mop sink in there, then a small one hole restroom with shower if possible.
Leave the balance of the basement wide open.

No need to do a bunch of fancy finishes, so long as it's clean and dry.  Also, make sure the stairs are safe, with good hand rails.
Just leave the joists and deck exposed to view and mount light fixtures to underside, then surface mount plenty of wall outlets on the perimeter walls, and maybe a few on ceiling near center.
You can throw down a carpet remnant and a few pieces of furniture to set up a TV entertainment area, could build a bar, have a pool table, ping pong, workshop, or whatever interests you.
They make great places for kids to play on cold or rainy days and the mess stays in basement.

[lthenderson]

Don't drywall the ceiling whatever you do. I've torn so much drywall from basement ceilings to access what would have been a simple plumbing or wiring project had the owner not done that. If you cover the ceiling, I recommend using a removable ceiling panel system. They make some that attach directly to the bottom of the joists so that it doesn't eat up space like a hanging ceiling does.

Also, if you drywall your basement, consider leaving it short of the floor several inches and finishing it out with wide trim. Any accidental water release goes down to the basement and by creating a gap, you eliminate having to replace drywall each time that happens, especially if you have a walkout basement and working floor drains so that the water never gets deep.

[Sibley]

Where I live has a fully finished basement, including wall to wall carpet. It also has a temperamental ejector pump. Very bad combo.

[Cranky]

Look at basements on pinterest! There are tons of ideas (I'm planning to help a friend rearrange and paint her basement next summer.)

[paddedhat]

A painting contractor once taught me a slick, low cost basement ceiling trick. First I clean up any known mechanical issues with plumbing, electrical, etc. Then I install cheap, surface mount, 4' strip flourescent fixtures to the SIDE of the joists He then takes a blow nozzle on an air hose and blows all the accumulated crud out of the floor joist area of the unfinished ceiling. After the dust settles and the place is vacuumed, he covers the floor with drop cloths, then fills his sprayer with cheap, flat latex paint. Next he paints the entire underfloor, the joists, and everything else that's nailed to them. It's actually pretty quick and cheap to do, and it gives it a bit of an industrial look. I would only caution that it needs to be a light, reflective color. I've done this, in flat black and flat dark green, in commercial spaces. It just sucks all the light out of room, and that is with ceilings that are twice as tall as a typical basement.

[Guide2003]

The house I grew up in had an unfinished basement for years. My mom loved closets, so dad framed in six in the basement, three about a foot deep that concealed the main septic line, and three about a yard deep that formed a wall blocking off the furnace/water heater/oil tanks from the rest of the open space. Then we painted the concrete floor and walls a light color and found a couple sections of carpet that someone was throwing out but still were reasonably clean and threw those down on the ground. Overall a great playspace that we could rollerblade in, leave a mess and have it out of sight, and not suffer too much damage if a significant storm left a few inches of water in it. I could also roll the carpet out of the way and build a strip canoe or whatever project I had going that wouldn't fit in the workroom. Couldn't have cost more than $1000 initially, and took a couple weekends.

That worked well for our whole childhood, and then once we were past the toys stage (and looking back--once my parents had the disposable income) we did a proper DIY finished basement with gas fireplace, TV, workout space, etc.