Basement Finishing Ideas

Utilizing a basement can be a great way to increase living space. Basement finishing ideas can enable you to turn this usually dank, dark, unused place in the house into an inviting place to retire in, which can be soothingly cooling in the summer and snugly cozy in the winter. With a little innovativeness and a fair amount of planning, you can turn your basement into a recreation room for the family, or an area where you can entertain your friends, or your own den, or a play area for children, or a place to set up your home theater in… really, just about anything that you can imagination.

Basement Finishing Ideas # 1 – Flooring

One of the main problems about the flooring in basements is the moisture. Moisture seepage can result in carpets getting moldy, the warping of laminated and hardwood flooring, or lead to the adhesive that you may have used for other flooring material to become weak. One of the best ways of preventing this is to install a moisture barrier in order to prevent seepage. Plus, if the floor is damaged in any way or is cracked, these have to be rectified before installing new flooring. Similarly, choose flooring material according to the conditions in your basement, your requirements, and of course your own sense of style. You could choose from various types of flooring material like carpeting, laminated material, cement, porcelain, ceramic, or hardwood.

In case you do choose to use a carpet on the floor of the basement, it is a good idea to get a thick padding material or even double padding it. This will add comfort to your basement, smoothen out little irregularities on the floor, particularly near the jack posts and walls.

Basement Finishing Ideas # 2 – Ceiling

Another problem area in basements is the height of the ceiling. Most ceilings of basements are lower compared to the other rooms of a house. There are several ideas that can be incorporated to counter this such as finishing around the ductwork, creating a box-like effect, or re-ducting the basement, or excavating the floor in order to lower it. Additionally up-lighting, using lighter colored ceiling, and installing mirrors on the ceiling can also be helpful.

Basement Finishing Ideas # 3 – Lighting

As basements have a tendency of being gloomy and dark, one of the first steps you need to consider for your basement finishing ideas is to add lighting. In case a portion of your basement is above ground level, make the best use of this by installing a number of windows or enlarging the existing ones. Since most ceilings of basements are low, it creates a cave-like feeling. In order to counter this effect, you can install indirect lighting, creating splashes of light pools on the ceiling. Apart from making the room look more spacious, this has the additional effect of making the ceiling appear higher. You can mix this up with recessed lighting, table lamps, floor lamps, spot lights and directional lights mounted on the walls, track lights, and so on to create interesting moods. You can even install mirrors on the walls or the ceiling, in order to amplify the effect of the lighting.

There are many other great basement finishing ideas that you can think of, such as creating separate areas in it, while keeping as much open space, of course, installing interesting shelving and wall material, after installing proper seepage barriers and insulation, or painting the walls up in interesting colors to go with the rest of the décor, putting up interesting art work, placing interesting and colorful rugs on the floor, setting up comfortable furniture, a bar, or exercise equipment. With these basement finishing ideas you can create an area that is useful, comfortable, fun and aesthetically pleasing.