[Eat.Sleep.Race]

Hello all, Looking to finish my basement, it is about 1100-1200sq ft, and was wondering if anyone has done it recently and had a good idea of what to expect for a basic finish, versus a full blown finish. Looking to stay around 20k, (must have's) are carpet and a FULL bathroom, no bar or kitchen. Maybe recessed lighting, but maybe not. Basement is walk out with a few small windows as well. Going to do french doors to replace sliding glass door. Does this seem realistic to you?

Any insight would be great, i will get about 4 estimates this week and next with various options.

[Joekerr]

I haven't, but my cousin did and did a bathroom, small kitchen and two small bedrooms (about same sq ft) and did it for about 25K as I recall.

Based on your very limited needs (ie. no bathroom / kitchen), I should think you wouldn't have a problem staying around the 20K mark.

Edit: he also put in pot lights too, and there was a living room in there too...I think your needs are pretty reasonable.

[MidwestGolfBum]

I finished mine of almost the same size but did all the work on my own or called in some favors from buddies when needed and spent $45K. Granted, I got full custom cabinets, a full wet bar, pot lights, a 3/4 bath, a good wood shop with the works and some other little extras.

With what you want, you may not have too many issues getting it done for your budget. May not be getting the top of the line stuff, but sounds like you don't necessarily need that.

[MrPrena]

My basement is about same size as mentioned above, and I did not finish my basement.
I wanted to finish it,but decide to just leave it as is. I just made it a fun cave. (similar to man cave).

It has section with
- desk/book shelves.
-safe and other stuff. Plan to add a door or some sort.
-golf practice net w/ artificial grass/carpet
-storage area for stuff I sell online
-Plan to have gym mat+punching bag on last section

[SCHMOUPE]

I have and case by case and depending on the contractor your costs will vary. couple of things to consider:
1. Is your basement prone to get water in it? If there is even a remote chance, be careful with carpet. I finished 2 basements and went with tiles in both cases.
2. When you talk about putting a bath, remember you will need sewer line. Is your basement higher than the sewer line? If yes, gravity will take care of your business, if not, you will need ejector pumps.
3. Electrical; make sure you have a panel which will support all the appliances you will have down there. This includes your recess lights, Tvs, fridge, AC....
4. Heating and cooling: Think about it before you close up your walls; do you need to add anything

I can sit here and list all day long but you get the point. Think about exactly what your vision is and what you will need to get it achieved. Worry about aesthetics later.

[Eat.Sleep.Race]

I won't need any appliances down there, basically just want to get it framed, drywall, carpet or fake hardwood, and a full bath (shower, toilet, sink) no need for a tub. That way if family is over they don't need to come up 2 floors to take a shower…

I may just do like 5/6 overhead lights, not even recessed, just some basic fixtures, and one ceiling fan.

No molding on walls just the kick plate, but don't need crown molding, or any of the upgraded pillars I see in some basements.

Just want it finished with a few electrical outlets thru out, for Wall mount tv, and a few other little things to be plugged in.

I also have a good friend that is an awesome remodeling company so I'm hoping he will come in nice and low on the estimate compared to other companies.

[BEM-S4]

One thing to keep in mind, not sure if you're budget is $20 total or $20 now. For instance it costs next to nothing to prewire for surround sound now, a small fortune to do it later. You could probably set aside $1 or so for that kind of thing and save yourself 10x that down the road.

[Eat.Sleep.Race]

Originally Posted by BEM-S4

One thing to keep in mind, not sure if you're budget is $20 total or $20 now. For instance it costs next to nothing to prewire for surround sound now, a small fortune to do it later. You could probably set aside $1 or so for that kind of thing and save yourself 10x that down the road.

Yea i might do some pre wiring for that type of stuff, def going to have Power outlet and HDMI ports behind TV done before drywall is put up.

[zx10guy]

I had my basement finished about 7 years ago. Bought the house new from the builder and opted to have it finished differently than what the builder was going to do. With regards to what have been said, if you're not sure what setup you're going to do with a multi-channel sound system, you can run conduit to pull cabling later. I had conduit put in and pulled the cabling I wanted later. Also as far as electrical, I put in a 100 A sub panel in addition to dedicated electrical circuits for the components of my sound system. Other things you might want to do is to consult a lighting designer on the placement and type of recessed lights. I had this done for my basement.

Some before and after pics:

[MidwestGolfBum]

The conduit mentioned above is the way to go, sometimes even if you know exactly what you want to run now. I have conduit through my entire house and adding ethernet, RG6, etc. down the road has been extremely easy.

[BEM-S4]

Originally Posted by Eat.Sleep.Race

Yea i might do some pre wiring for that type of stuff, def going to have Power outlet and HDMI ports behind TV done before drywall is put up.

Do yourself a favor and talk with someone who builds super high end systems as opposed to best buy install or something like that. You're better off prewiring for the top end solution and not using it if you decide to just do a middle of the road install. Price difference for the pre-work wires and whatnot will be minimal. And have your electrician leave tons of extra wire. Easy to cut later.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by BEM-S4

Do yourself a favor and talk with someone who builds super high end systems as opposed to best buy install or something like that. You're better off prewiring for the top end solution and not using it if you decide to just do a middle of the road install. Price difference for the pre-work wires and whatnot will be minimal. And have your electrician leave tons of extra wire. Easy to cut later.

There's actually more to setting up a top notch audio system than just planning for pre-wires. Many people forget the main component to any proper sound system and that's the room acoustics. If your room echos like crazy and has tons of resonance, then no matter how much money you spend on your equipment, it'll still sound sub par compared to modest money spent on equipment, proper speaker placement, and a room built for proper acoustics.

If you are focusing on acoustics, you never want to build a square room. You also want to plan for acoustical treatments such as acoustic panels and bass traps. If you want to go hog wild, you can float the dry wall, insulate the walls, use two different thicknesses of dry wall stacked on top of each other, boxing out any openings in the wall such as recessed lights, etc, etc.

[BEM-S4]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

There's actually more to setting up a top notch audio system than just planning for pre-wires. Many people forget the main component to any proper sound system and that's the room acoustics. If you're room echos like crazy and has tons of resonance, then no matter how much money you spend on your equipment, it'll still sound sub par compared to modest money spent on equipment, proper speaker placement, and a room built for proper acoustics.

If you are focusing on acoustics, you never want to build a square room. You also want to plan for acoustical treatments such as acoustic panels and bass traps. If you want to go hog wild, you can float the dry wall, insulate the walls, use two different thicknesses of dry wall stacked on top of each other, boxing out any openings in the wall such as recessed lights, etc, etc.

This is all true. My buddy who did mine builds smart homes with multimillion dollar tech budgets, did a listening room for Billy Joel, etc. I just meant at the absolute bare minimum for negligible expense get an idea of a proper layout and run the wires. Cheap and easy no reason not to.

[2011CrazE89]

I miss having a basement. Some of my best memories took place down there
Here in South Florida, a basement would be considered a swimming pool.

[f10inSD]

What's a basement?

Ahh the joys of living in So. Cal... Here we have to convert our garage to a man cave! lol

[Eat.Sleep.Race]

^^^ above pics of basement are amazing!!! But before you all go into much detail about the sound system and home theatre I'm not too interested in it, as i don't spend much time watching tv or movies, I am typically working, tinkering with cars, bikes or atv's too much lol

Mainly trying to see what is cost for basic finish, with the most being a high end full bathroom if budget allows. It will be used for pool table, and just a hangout with more space to move around than the middle floor living area, since the upper 2 levels are around 3000sqft i don't need a whole lot out of the basement.

[Maestro]

It has been some time since I did out basement, and after we did all the work we end up moving so we really did not get to enjoy it that much. Our basement was about 1000 sqft too. I can tell you that $20K to so a basement of that size is not going to get you much. We spent a little over that ourselves and I did lots of work, such as the design and layout, as well as all the electrical and lighting as well as the pergo flooring in the gameroom/kitchen bar area.

IF you going to spend the money to put in a bath room you should also do a bar/kitchen as well. most of the expense is in the plumping if you not doing it yourself.

In our 1000 sqft we put in a game room and bar, a movie room which did not have the electronic (which was blessing since we moved. We also put in a wine cellar for about 100 bottles, a storage room, equipment room, and a work shop (again not outfitted with equipment) If I remember correctly we spent about $24K and as I said I did lots of work myself.

Also, I found a contractor who did all the work himself expect plumping and electrical. He also allowed me to pay for the materials at his cost and his labor was the last check we wrote. Every time he showed up with a delivery or material he showed me the invoice and I cut hit a check on the spot. The fact he was willing to do it this way and I help saved us tons of money. Other the quotes we has put in the $40K to 50K range and it was bare bones to extras which we had.

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by MidwestGolfBum

The conduit mentioned above is the way to go, sometimes even if you know exactly what you want to run now. I have conduit through my entire house and adding ethernet, RG6, etc. down the road has been extremely easy.

Wish I had that. The original owner of our house had a sheetrocked ceiling put in the basement with a faux stucco finish. So running ethernet cables is out of the question. And the couple times we needed to get above the ceiling for plumbing issues, it was a royal pain patching the access hole. Don't every put a solid ceiling in basement unless you place access panels under the major plumbing areas.

[P1]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

I had my basement finished about 7 years ago. Bought the house new from the builder and opted to have it finished differently than what the builder was going to do. With regards to what have been said, if you're not sure what setup you're going to do with a multi-channel sound system, you can run conduit to pull cabling later. I had conduit put in and pulled the cabling I wanted later. Also as far as electrical, I put in a 100 A sub panel in addition to dedicated electrical circuits for the components of my sound system. Other things you might want to do is to consult a lighting designer on the placement and type of recessed lights. I had this done for my basement.

Some before and after pics:

Look at all that B&W goodness. Puts my setup to shame, but one day!

[MidwestGolfBum]

Originally Posted by M_Six

Wish I had that. The original owner of our house had a sheetrocked ceiling put in the basement with a faux stucco finish. So running ethernet cables is out of the question. And the couple times we needed to get above the ceiling for plumbing issues, it was a royal pain patching the access hole. Don't every put a solid ceiling in basement unless you place access panels under the major plumbing areas.

Thankfully when I finished my basement, the major plumbing was in a spot that I could just throw in a utility closet of sorts and didn't have to worry about the ceiling. I have 2 access holes that unless I point them out, almost nobody sees for the 2 spigots that weren't in a spot that I wanted to put an unfinished area of the ceiling.

This being the 3rd house that I built, I was to the point that I knew exactly the things I wanted to be sure I had and the things that I was probably going to want to plan for in the future. The electricians and plumbers were giving me shit about all the conduit that I was running throughout the house while it was being built. I have had the electrician come back to add a panel when I finished the basement and showed him what all the conduit was used for. He said he is going to start to recommend it to everybody now.

[M_Six]

There's a huge building at the UofI called the Beckman Institute. It was purpose built for research. Despite that, they failed to put ethernet conduit in the building and had to retrofit cable trays everywhere. Talk about poor planning. If I ever get to build my own house, it'll be fully wired with a dedicated IT closet complete with a server rack.

So as not to thread crap, what are these? (And that is one impressive basement, btw.)

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by P1et

Look at all that B&W goodness. Puts my setup to shame, but one day!

Thanks. Glad you're able to recognize that they are B&W speakers. One thing I would have done differently would be to have another N804 tower for my center channel versus the HTM1 I have currently.