Super budget basement finishing...

[Mom2Ben02]

We have a 3.5 year old home, with a full unfinished basement. We want to "finish" half of it into a playroom. We just had baby #3, and there are way too many legos and Barbie shoes around here for him to choke on! DH is out of work, which is a double-edged sword...he has the TIME to do it but not the money

We do have a rough-in down there for a bathroom, and my friend's DH is a plumber that is out of work. I have a toliet I saved when we replaced it upstairs with an upgraded one, and a sink that I got on freecycle. I would like to do a shower - will prob regret it if i don't - but not sure if we can afford it. My BIL is an electrician (again - out of work...we are a fun group these days!). We are thinking of doing an indoor/outdoor carpet with a foam backing on the concrete floor. The walls are also concrete - I'd like to paint the top a color and the bottom half with chalkboard paint. Has anyone done something like this? Will we regret not waiting until we have the money? That may be YEARS away, though!!

 

[msmayor]

While I suppose its possible to do it on a small budget with the help of friends, there is still some bucks to be spent if you are going to do it right.

First, I urge you to do it 'right' as far as the town you live in is concerned and get permits. Many people try to 'save' money here, thinking that it will save them on property taxes since the town won't know about the new living space...but it can come back and bite you when you decide to sell.

If no permits are on file and you attempt to transfer title, its 'possible' that the town will delay issuing a new certificate of occupancy unless/until you pay for the permits and have ALL the work you did inspected.

You need to make sure your basement is dry. Water incursion is always possible in a concrete basement, and homeowner's insurance will NOT cover water damage unless you have flood insurance and/or a sump pump with the proper sump rider coverage.

Please be aware that just using waterproofing paint on the concrete doesn't 'waterproof' your basement.

I can't really offer up much in the way of costs, since our basement was finished by our builder when our home was built (full bathroom with shower, about 700s.f. of space with carpeting) at their price of $15,000. I have neighbors that did their basements on their own that did NOT include bathrooms, and they spent a few thousand on materials.

 

[dawson5]

Can't comment on the basement paint and things like that, but it sounds like you all have enough people for your own home improvement company.

Good luck on the basement.

One other way for the budget to extend a bit. My son's teacher, she and her husband have rehabbed a few houses. He talked her into painting the ceiling and rafters black instead of drop ceiling or drywall. She said she was skeptical but it turned out great, especially as it's more of a media room/play room. Some restaurants have ceilings finished like this, like a sports bar or wing place.

 

[tkafam]

We've lived inour house for 10 years and talked about finishing our basement when we first moved in, but we're so glad we didn't because of the age of our kids. Our boys are 12 and 9 now and they've played so much baseball, soccer, hockey in that basement that they would not have been allowed to play had we finished it. Just something to consider if you have boys who like to play sports and live in place that they can't go outside to play in the winter b/c of the weather.

 

[Disneycrazymom]

We used paneling on our basement. While it is more $$ than just paint you can put some insulation behind it to warm the room. I also wanted a play area but didn't want to spend too much money. We insulated and paneled the walls and tiled the floor. I like the tile better than carpet because I can clean it when things spill! I have a couple area rugs to keep it warm. We did put in the drop ceiling but the black paint is a good idea to save money and you can always add the tiles later. It has changed as the kids got older from sort of lago/barbie land to more of a family room. We have a big TV down there now and moved the old family room furniture when I got new stuff upstairs. We use the space all the time! Kids have sleep overs down there and the game system is there too. When they were little I didn't worry about toys left out there the way I would in the upstairs family room. Sometimes DH or I even head down there to watch a movie no one else wants to see. For us it was worth it to finish it in. The only thing we didn't ever do was a bathroom and boy I wish it had one!

 

[**eeyore**]

We do have a rough-in down there for a bathroom, and my friend's DH is a plumber that is out of work. I have a toliet I saved when we replaced it upstairs with an upgraded one, and a sink that I got on freecycle. I would like to do a shower - will prob regret it if i don't - but not sure if we can afford it. My BIL is an electrician (again - out of work...we are a fun group these days!). We are thinking of doing an indoor/outdoor carpet with a foam backing on the concrete floor. The walls are also concrete - I'd like to paint the top a color and the bottom half with chalkboard paint. Has anyone done something like this? Will we regret not waiting until we have the money? That may be YEARS away, though!!

Other than the bathroom, you really aren't "finishing" your basement - you're just painting walls and putting down some carpet. I would first get a permit to do the bathroom - your husband & friends/family could easily do that (you may want to just leave the space for the shower and not install now). Then, once the bathroom is done & the inspector has completed his inspecitions, you can paint the walls & put some carpeting down - I would look into remnants. You don't even necessarily need to have the carpet "installed". You could just use the remnants like large throw rugs.

If you do it this way, it will help you in your current situation by creating a more comfortable play area for the kids, but won't limit you in any way for what you might want to do down the road.

Good luck!

 

[jcgonczi]

If all you are looking for is a safe place for the kids to play, then all you need to do is wall off the part you want them to play in from the rest of the basement. You could use sheetrock, paneling, MDF, or whatever is cheapest. We did this with sheetrock. It is by no means what you would call a finished basement. We hung sheetrock, but we did not mud the seams or paint it. It is kind of nice because when the walls get written on, it is no big deal. Plus you can tape things like the kid's artwork to the walls without caring what it looks like later. We put multi-colored foam squares over the concrete floor (I bought them at BJ's for about $200 for a huge number of them). The only other thing we did was wire in some florescent ceiling lights and some electrical outlets for the game system. We did a pretty big area and even have a very large Little Tykes playground down there. We also have a child sized table for all of the coloring stuff (my daughter is a coloring nut) and another big child sized table for them to play at if they want their toys oof the floor. We have so much stuff and toys down there that my friends call it Disney Land. It is not pretty, but every parent who sees it says they wish they had done the same thing when their kids were little instead of actually finishing the basement.

 

[3girlsfun]

We recently finished in our basement. We found someone to do all the work for a great bargain, and he did great work. However, this was after we let a "friend" do the work. It ended the relationship, and the basement was never finished when our "friend" was doing the work! So, I would use a lot of CAUTION if you decide to go this way.

The other thing. I am not one for doing things unless we can do them right, we too had to do our basement cheaply. Our room is basic, it has no extras, I mean, none.

I would probably try to do it a little at a time as you can afford it. We have the same problem, and older child, and then the tiny babies. What we did until we had the basement finished was to get 3 sets of the child gates. We gated the middle baby in, so that we didn't have to worry about the stray toys. We monitored everything brought into the living room. It has worked for us so far.

Also, we rarely use the basement.....I still feel like it was a wasted $3,000, at least for now. (We could have used that money towards other things.) I think it is something we will use as the kids get older instead.

 

[LuLuO]

I would skip the chalkboard paint and just use Drylok paint on the concrete. It come is a few colors but you can also have it tinted. We just used white on our walls. It isn't cheap paint but it is a waterproofer too which is great for the basement. You will need more cans than you think. I believe we used 2.5 cans on two walls that were each 8'x12'. It goes on thick.

My mom has outdoor carpet in her basement and it has worked out well for her. We used carpet tiles but it was very pricey. Something you could consider is painting the floor too and then using area rugs to warm it up a bit.