Basement pics and update

coasterqueen wrote: Sorry if I'm boring you all with my basement project I know some of you wanted to see some pics of the tile and I finally got them on the website. You can go to www.seethenations.com and click on Basement Project and they'll be there. Please excuse some of my missing buttons on the website. I'm having difficulty with them and haven't had a lot of time to figure out why they are being so difficult.


Also, I can proudly say I varnished my last two doors last night. So I will NEVER stain/sandseal/sand/varnish another door in this lifetime! I still have the banister rail and a few pieces of trim here and there to do but they are MUCH easier than doors! I'm a bit sad though because I'm a perfectionist and I've noticed some runs on the varnish on the doors, but I don't care at this point. Hardly anyone will notice them unless I point them out, which I'm known to be stupid enough to do.

We hope to be done by the middle to end of August. The bar won't be completed til beginning of September though, but no biggy.

So there's my update .

Kaitlin'smom replied: wow its comming along great! you should be so proud of yourselves, it looks awsome!

so how many rooms are down there?

coasterqueen replied:
Thanks :-) We have 3 main rooms and then a bunch of closets.

We gave the rooms names so when we've been working down there and refer to something it's easier to know what we are talking about, lol. There is the den which has 2 closets in it. There is the game room (where the bar is at) which has a 3 closets. There is the bathroom off the game room and a furnace room off the game room. Then there is the TV room which has 3 closets in it and an electrical closet.

We have a TON of closets down there. There actually was a HUGE closet in the original plan we designed but we decided to make the den bigger instead. The basement is mainly for storage and a bit of entertaining. We don't do much of that anyways, lol.

Kaitlin'smom replied: sounds great, when ever we sell and look for a new home I will need much more storage space as the next home I plan on staying in until Kailtin is grown and on her own, I want her to have a house she grew up in kinda thing like I did.

coasterqueen replied:
Same here. That's why when we built our house it was TOO big for two people, but it's just right for 3. We are starting to wonder if it's going to be big enough for 4. ROFL. But we have enough land that we can build onto the house if need be, I guess. We have outgrown our garage already and DH wants to build another one on our land *someday* but we haven't agreed on the location yet, lol.

It is VERY important to Ryan and I to have our children grow up in the same home. That's why he's turned down job offers in other locations, money is less important to us than where we live. Ryan's dad divorced several times and he moved quite a bit. I was uprooted from my home when I was in 6th grade and as DH says all the time, that has severely affected me. I don't know why but leaving everything behind and having to start over was too much for me as a kid and has left a lasting effect on me. My sister was much much younger when we moved though and it didn't affect her. Soooo to make a long story short we will HOPE to never move from our current location.

MomToMany replied: Wow!! You guys are doing an awesome job!! I love that tile!

I would love to have that many closets!! You can never have enough, IMHO.

We're staying in this same spot til we are old & gray. We'll be getting a different house next year, hopefully. We live in a 3 bed/2 bath mobile home. We want to get a 3 bed/2 bath double wide and put it on top of a full basement, which we will put extra bedrooms and an extra bath in. We can't afford to build (and don't have the time to), otherwise we would've did that. I feel so embarrassed to say that we live in a mobile home, but it's all we can do right now.

MommyToAshley replied: Karen, it looks great! Wow... you've really made a lot of progress in a short time. You both should be very proud!!!!

coasterqueen replied:
Don't feel embarassed at all! We actually considered putting a mobile home on our property at first. There are a lot of nice mobile homes out there, nicer than some homes people live in, lol.

The only reason we didn't is because we had to fight in court family members just to get this land and there were several agreements made in order for us to acquire the land. One of them being that we would build a house on it. We couldn't afford to build that house when we did it. We honestly don't know how the bank gave us a loan but we've muddled through and continue to pay the ungodly mortgage on it every month.

Anyways, so that's why we had to build. But it was well worth it to get the land since it was very special to DH.

A&A'smommy replied: WOW that sounds like an awesome basement!!! I think I am going to your site to see all your pictures lol its really does sound very cool I want to have a basement like that only with one extra room and that would be a bedroom when we build a house! Thanks for keeping us updated!!

amynicole21 replied: Yay! It's really looking good. I love that tile in the bar area.

kimberley replied: looks great, Karen! the tile is really nice.

julesmom replied: Hi. I am mainly a lurker, but I had to tell you your basement looks great!

We really want to finish ours too. Can you give me an idea on how much it cost you to do it all. I realize your dh did most of it. Did he do the electrical too? Also, how are you heating it?

We have baseboard heating on the 1st floor and I know nothing about heating a basement. We are in a ranch too.

Also how did you decide how you wanted it set up and the rooms and stuff? Did you have plans? Did you get them from somewhere or make them yourselves?

Sorry for all the questions, but I just think you guys did a fabulous job!! I am so jealous! I would love my basement to look like yours.

coasterqueen replied:
Thanks for the compliments . We designed our own home about 5 years ago when we built it and at that time since my DH had built houses for a living before hand he knew a few *tricks* to make costs a bit cheaper. Basically he knew that if we designed the basement with barring walls instead of beams then it would be cheaper. Does that make sense?

Most basements have to have some type of beam system running along the ceiling to support the upper level of the house on the basement foundation. We didn't want a beam like that because it takes away from *head space*. So we built a few stationary (barring walls) down there when we built the house. These walls can not be removed because they help support the upper level. Actually they can be removed BUT you'd have to do some jacking up with temporary supports, etc. Kinda confusing, lol.

Over the last 5 years we have slowly determined what other walls we wanted built and how exactly we wanted the basement laid out. Actually one of the reasons we've waited this long to finish the basement was because we weren't sure on a few things as far as how we wanted them laid out, but now we are confident in our design.

My husband drew up all of our house/basement plans on AutoCad. I think that was the program he used. Then we had them printed up on the big house plan paper so sub contractors could have *professional* plans. We saved $1,000 drawing our own plans up front .

I haven't kept track of what it has cost us so far, but DH estimated that it would cost $15,000 to finish the basement and that doesn't include to furnish it, which we will do VERY slowly, possibly many many years from now, lol. We got a revolving line of credit at the bank so we just write checks for everything we purchase. Hopefully DH is keeping track of the financial side of it. He just keeps telling me he has no idea how we are going to pay for it.

Now we have done EVERYTHING in our basement except having the carpet/tile layed and the drywall finished. We hung the drywall just had someone else finish it. We could have done it but didn't feel like it, lol. And yes DH did the electrical. He is an electrical engineer so he has that thing wired up to a T. ROFL.

As far as heating we had heating/air conditioning ran for the basement when we built the house. This was to insure we wouldn't have molding, etc go on down there. Our furnace has a dehumidifer on it (I think that is what it's called or is it a humidifier, oh whatever, lol) to help deal with preventing mold. So that was all done 5 years ago. We had a friend of the family run our heating/air conditioning for us then. He still charged us the going rate though. But since we've changed a few things DH has had to *redirect* pipes and do them himself. Not to big of a deal, I guess.

One of the reasons we waited so long to finish the basement like I mentioned above is because it has taken us 5 years to decide what we wanted. It wasn't until we had our daughter that we realized what we needed as far as storage downstairs and upstairs and what we really wanted the functionality of our basement to be. It's basically for storage, but we hope to do a bit of entertaining down there. DH and I like to play poker so that's basically what the gameroom will be for. The bar is in there because DH likes to drink and he won't have to go upstairs to get one, lol. The den was going to be 2 rooms: one being a huge storage closet and the other a spare bedroom. But we decided the den upstairs was too small and would best be put to use as a playroom so that is why it got moved downstairs. Also, we chose to not have a walk-out basement because of leakage. We were afraid we would have leakage and it wasn't something we wanted to deal with if it rained too much, etc. We have no windows down there either for the same leakage reason. That is why we will never have a bedroom down there (fire/safety issues), but that isn't a big deal to us.

I'm rambling now, lol. Hope some of this helps. Let me know if you have any more questions ;-)

Boys r us replied: Hey girl..the basement is looking awesome! You guys did a GREAT job on it! I like the color of the tile!