Six ways to use the space under your house, each priced from the problem it actually raises rather than from a square-foot rate.
No obligation. Every estimate starts with a walkthrough and a straight answer about what your basement will allow.
People tend to ask for a finished basement as though it were one product. It is closer to six, and which one you are buying changes the price far more than the floor area does.
A living room is the cheapest thing to put down there, because it asks nothing of the plumbing and very little of the code. A bedroom costs more than its size suggests, because it needs a compliant escape opening and that usually means cutting concrete. A bathroom is governed almost entirely by where the main drain already sits. A theater is a geometry problem before it is a finishing problem, and an office lives or dies on circuits, daylight and the ability to shut a door.
The pages below describe each one from that angle: what it involves, what carries the cost, and what to decide before anyone starts.
A full basement taken from bare joists to finished rooms: framing, insulation, electrical, drywall, flooring and trim.
Read more →A legal sleeping room, which means a compliant egress opening and the ceiling height to go with it.
Read more →Adding or rebuilding a bathroom below grade, where the drain line decides most of the layout.
Read more →An open family room built around the beam, the stair and whatever daylight the space actually gets.
Read more →A room planned around sightlines, seating rows and sound isolation before a single stud goes up.
Read more →A quiet, well-lit workspace with enough circuits and data to run it, and a door that closes.
Read more →Inspections sit between the stages rather than after them.
Clear height to the lowest obstruction, the panel, the main drain, the cleanout, and what the slab and framing are doing.
A layout, a materials list and a sequence, with a plain answer if what you want will not fit.
Drawings go to Sparks, Reno, Washoe County, Storey County or Lyon County depending on your address.
Framing, then electrical, plumbing and mechanical, then insulation, with inspections in between.
Drywall, tape, texture, paint, flooring, trim, doors and fixtures.
We walk it with you and write down anything that needs correcting before it is called done.
One job, but the bathroom drives the schedule. A bedroom needs an egress opening and the ceiling height to support habitable use. A bathroom needs a drain at the right depth, a vent, and two more inspections.
Doing both at once is more efficient than doing them a year apart, because the framing, electrical and drywall stages are shared. It is worth pricing the bathroom separately though, so you can see what that one room is costing you.
Often yes, and it can be a sensible way to spread cost. The thing to avoid is finishing the part that contains the panel, the furnace or the main cleanout without planning how the second phase reaches them.
If you tell us at the walkthrough that this is a two-phase project, the first phase gets laid out so the second one does not involve tearing anything back out.
An open living or family room with no plumbing. It uses the existing stair, needs no concrete cut and no new drain, and it is the version where nearly all the budget goes into things you can see.
If daylight is poor, lighting design matters more than finishes. A well-lit plain room reads better than a dim one with expensive flooring.
Either. A full basement is listed as Basement Remodeling and is usually the better value per square foot because the rough-in stages happen once. A single room is a smaller, faster job and a reasonable place to start if you are not sure how you will use the rest.
Send photos and rough dimensions and you will get an assessment of which of these fits your basement, what the work involves, and what it is likely to cost.