Finishing a basement cost

[pointdablame]

Can we just agree that if I use metal studs I'll wear gloves?

no

[DrewKaree]

Wearing gloves doesn't help when you're supposed to use your neck to lift 'em up

Headed off to take pics for you in a few minutes.  I'll post 'em when I take 'em off the camera tomorrow-ish

[ChadTower]

Oh sweet and unexpected.

[DrewKaree]

Here ya go.  Heading down the stairs:

[DrewKaree]

When you hit the bottom of the stairs, if you turned to your right, this is what you'd see.  That doorway is the bathroom, and the light in the back is the laundry area.  I was requested NOT to take pics of the "dirty" areas, so that's as far back as I go for now.

[DrewKaree]

Hitting the bottom of the stairs, heading straight forward, and turning to the right, here's the area built to fit the glassware hutch.  Behind that wall is his workshop, to the right of the workshop is the laundry room you glimpsed in the previous photo.  Sorry that some of these pics will be blurry, but I didn't have a lot of time to snap off these few

[DrewKaree]

Turning left from the same spot as the last pic, you'll see behind the bar.  Behind that rock wall is a closet built to hold the fridge that houses the kegs for the tappers, and the lines are run right through the side of the fridge, through the wall, and under the wet sink to the tapper.  This bar is a 4 seater and has a mini fridge for soda and whatnot.  The chairs are from a barber shop that was closing down.

[DrewKaree]

Sorry about the terrible blur.  Here you can see the seating area and the built-in liquor shelves.  I think there was a mirror in there somewhere which contributed to some of this.

The seating area is about one good sized step (think of a "Simon says" step you'd take) from the bottom of the stairs and off to the left.  To the left and behind the stairs is the living area which wasn't able to be photographed today.  You might be able to get an idea in the next pic about how large it is.  He's got his big screen down here too - 55 incher.

[DrewKaree]

Here's a straight on shot of the bar.  Taken while standing a few feet in front of the big screen.  You can see in the last pic the closet for the fridge, and in this one, off to the left, you can see it as well.  This may give you a little better idea of scale. 

Of all the stuff here, just finishing the walls (drywall, chair rail, popcorn finish on the walls, paint, and insulation) I was told would run between 4K-8K depending on how much of the basement you wanted finished off.  He's only got a quarter of the basement without drywall.  No popcorn, no chair rail, with equal amounts of walls finished would be ~5K

[DrewKaree]

A bar would run you ~ 1500-2000, and the bathroom with what you require (the pump and other issues that may arise) would probably be kinda costly due to your special needs, probably ~2-3K

Framing everything out yourself, he'd think would reduce your costs by about half.  That'd leave drywall, painting, plumbing, and various other little things. 

[ChadTower]

That's actually not too bad... looks a little claustrophobic down there but that may just be the pics.

I don't really need popcorn finish since most of the wall space will be covered with stuff like cabs and projector screen.  A decent warm color paint job will do nicely.  I'm not going drop ceiling, as mentioned before, because of the height issue.  I'm actually going to paint the joists and put tiles between them in order to keep as much height as possible.  I'm also going to minimize how far up I come with the floor.  This will probably add some cost but ceiling height is one place I want to be as maximal as possible.

[xar256]

I understand where you're coming from with the ceiling height and all, but just keep something in the back of your mind...If you put up a permanent (say drywall) ceiling, it's almost guaranteed, that you'll have a leaky pipe, or need to run a new power cable, that can be a real ---smurfette--- if you have to cut holes all over the place in your brand new ceiling a year down the road. ( I have a similar situation at my mom's place when I'm doing work...I hate it)

Make sure you make take that into account if you can.

Xar256

[ChadTower]

Dude, I've said at least twice, including in the last post here, that I'm going to put tiles between painted floor joists.

That would be a custom drop ceiling, not drywall or anything permanent.  It's easy.  Take some thin wood strips, nail them to the lower inside of the joists.  Cut some panels to use as tiles, paint them as well...

[Stingray]

Chad, I know you're more of DIYer than you're letting on here. You're more than capable of framing, doing the drywall and taping & mudding. There's nothing about it that's terribly difficult. Just time consuming.

-S

[xar256]

Dude, I've said at least twice, including in the last post here, that I'm going to put tiles between painted floor joists.

That would be a custom drop ceiling, not drywall or anything permanent.

[ChadTower]

Chad, I know you're more of DIYer than you're letting on here. You're more than capable of framing, doing the drywall and taping & mudding. There's nothing about it that's terribly difficult. Just time consuming.

In this case I'm more of an "I understand the concepts but when I try it it will come out ---smurfy--- just like most of my house projects" guy.

[Stingray]

If I can do it, surely anybody can do it.

-S

[ChadTower]

Fair enough.  At this point I'm in the "clearing out the tons and tons of stuff down there" stage... but since we have such strict trash laws, that really means Freecycling as much of it as I can, which takes a while.

[DrewKaree]

That's actually not too bad... looks a little claustrophobic down there but that may just be the pics.

It's probably got something to do with his drop ceiling too.  His ceilings are about 7'.  The main run for the furnace also is framed in, so that takes away some of it.  It's really just working around what's there and trying to maximize space.  The main heating duct was set up as somewhat of a room divider.  Everything in the bar/living area was built "open" with no walls or anything to alleviate space issues.  I've got a pic of the outside of the house to give an idea of how much room is down there, but it came out TERRIBLE.  Something from the other side without any light would give a better idea and if I can remember to take it, I will.

He hates the popcorn finish as well, since it flakes off or kids like picking it off   Standard paint like you want is easiest, but some folks just want something "different"

Insulating the floor like he did takes away ~ 3 inches - I didn't take a pic of the floor. 

[dmsuchy]

I was worried about celing height also on my basement. So I replaced all my galvanized plumbing with copper ran a bunch of extra wire, and a pvc tube up between the joist. The PVC was to run my projector cable and I drywalled the celing. I know, possible water leak ect.... but it has been drywalled for over 2 years and no problems, knock on wood. I like the clean look of drywalled celings and I ran a crap load of 4" cans on dimmers for the diffrent "sections" of the basement. To be honest it dosent feel like a basement but another room of the house. As for your floors, i suggested vinyle tile before, cheap and super easy to install. I wanted to just stain my concrete floors for a kinda industrial look but the floor already had a vinyle floor and I couldn't get the old glue off. Maybe staining your esisting concrete floors could be a way to go, or go with vinyle tile and area rugs like i did, makes clean up real easy. Another idea for you celing would be tongue and groove 1/2 X 4 inch cedar, makes a nice finish and is easy to pull down if you need to get up into the celing. Your basement than could be a huge humidor! ;DJust some ideas.

[ChadTower]

The floors probably have to be insulated at least a little.  It's very cold down here in the winter.