Anyone get their basement finished?

[Minnie824]

We're looking into getting our basement finished and want to get some estimates, but I don't even know where to start. Its a pretty big basement, but I'm wondering about how much it will cost? Also, if anyone is in the Chicago suburbs area, do you know of any reliable places that do this and we could get an estimate from?

One more thing...we're trying to get some ideas of what it should look like and can't find any good websites with pictures, so if anyone knows of any websites, that would be great too. Thanks!

 

[jel0511]

Gettig your basement finished is really an unimited abount of $$$. You can just put up walls and put in a carpet, to installing an entire home theatre. My basement cost $32k, and we didn't do anything elaborate, and didn't even put in a bathroom. My basement is 1500 sq ft, to give you an idea. My contractor just finished a basement job before he did mine, for $175k!!

 

[FOJMO]

...no basements in Florida

 

[Trinity721]

I live in the far north Chicago suburbs. We don't have our basement done, but I have a friend whose dad does basements. And he does an amazing job, it's his passion. In some homes, if requested, he installs a home theater, complete with a projector that comes down from the ceiling... kinda like a real movie. But basically, his designs are just fantastic.

I don't have the name and number offhand. But if you are interested, just let me know! Good luck!

 

[Tina]

You might want to consider doing some of the work yourself. We are just about to start ours. Hubby and his friends will frame it out. We've already got our drywall guys lined up. We'll hire a plumber for the bathroom work and small kitchenette. We'll do the electrical ourselves, but have our electrician friend wire the panel for a small fee. We'll do the ceramic tiling ourselves and hire someone for the carpeted areas. After that, it will just be painting and moulding. We don't expect to pay more than $15k out of pocket for supplies and labor.

 

[believe]

Wish I could help.....our's has been in the process of being complete for 3 yrs now. My Dad and brother are completing it, fortunately it is only costing us materials. The design all depends on what you need. We have an office/spare bedroom, playroom, storage room, family room and entry room which will hold a small eating area. We don't have a bathroom, it just wasn't possible unless I wanted to mess with the foundation. My key thing about basements is that there be multiple exits from all rooms. Each of our rooms (except the storage area) have atleast 2 exits and we do have a walkout to the backyard.

 

[Jeafl]

We live in the Chicago suburbs too.

We had our basement finished about 4 years ago. My biggest piece of advice is to sit down and decide EXACTLY what you want out of the basement. Like someone else said, you can have bare bones or go all out. Then, get at least 3 estimates from reputable people that are willing to give you references. The best way is by word of mouth. Make sure the contractor puts in WRITING exactly what he is responsible for and what you are responsible for. We were able to save some money by doing the painting ourselves, but our contractor did everything else.

We ended up getting 4 estimates, and they varied from $18,000 to $34,000 for the same job. Do not necessarily go with the cheapest, however, you may live to regret it. The people who quoted us $18,000 refused to let us get a permit. They claimed it was because they were looking out for us, and didn't want our taxes to go way up (which they did!). I looked at it that their work may not be quite up to standard, and they didn't want the inspectors to catch them on it. I was really worried that they would screw up the electrical and the place would burn down.

Also, make sure that you get a completion date from them in writing, and also what the consequences would be if it wasn't finished on time. Some neighbors didn't do this, and their basement ended up taking 5 months to finish because the guys only showed up when they felt like it! They were originally told 6 weeks. It was a total nightmare.

Good luck, and if you have any questions please pm me.

 

[catsrule]

Yes, but it was like that when we bought it. We just added a few things, like new carpet and glass block windows.

 

[Magickndm]

Originally posted by FOJMO
...no basements in Florida

Florida resident here too. How nice would that be though?

 

[Gette88]

My DH is in the construction business so he did our basement himself. It's an L shape basement with a laundry room behing it. We have drywall - walls (?) burbur carpeting. DH built a beautiful, big wood bar & it has hard wood floors around the bar. Half of the basement is a family room with a sectional couch and nice size t.v. The other 1/2 where the bar is has a pool table and that 1/2 is devoted to NASCAR. It really didn't cost us that much, just for the material.