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Do you want more room in your house but don’t have enough property to enlarge it on the ground floor? Consider going subterranean. Houses with unfinished basements in particular are great candidates for this type of remodel, but people are often intimidated by the idea.

Benefits of a basement

Why a basement? Going down is substantially cheaper than trying to build up as you don’t have to deal with constructing a new roof or adding structural supports. Buying a new house, of course, involves a whole other set of time and money commitments. If your home doesn’t have an unfinished basement, you might be surprised to learn it’s even possible to add a basement to an existing house even if your home was a one-story building to begin with. So what are you waiting for?

Designing a floor plan

The first thing to do when finishing or constructing a basement is to come up with a decent, livable floor plan. Two architectural terms to keep in mind are “flow” and “circulation.” How will people move from one room to another? What do you plan on using the room for? For example, if you want to turn it into a home theater, you won’t want the main flow of traffic channeled in front of the theater wall.

Adding natural light

People often don’t like basements because of their lack of natural light. However, there are many options for choosing the size, number, and location of your windows to maximize outside light. Keep in mind as you do so that there are building codes for basements. The International Residential Code states that each basement bedroom needs a window “with a lower ledge no more than 44 inches from the floor and at least 5.7 square feet of clear opening space.”

Basements can be great boons to you and your household. If more space if what you want, look into this option to see if it could work for your home.

Interior Decorating and Remodeling News Brought to You by
http://BaseBoardRadiatorCover.com

Source:
http://www.deseretnews.com/art...aces-downstairs.html

Public service message or violation of board rules. Hmmm???

Note to self and others:
NEVER click on these types of links either....it just encourages the spew of advertising.

quote:

Originally posted by conrad:
Note to self and others:
NEVER click on these types of links either....it just encourages the spew of advertising.

Thanks for the reminder.
I pretty much Never click on links any more.