Basement Remodel

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1

I’m looking for some ideas/input for a basement remodel that I’m considering.

We bought our house about a year and a half ago; the house is a ranch with a full basement that was finished by one of the previous owners. Now I use the word “finished” very loosely because the basement seems like some guy with no idea what he was doing just thew it together:
-The walls in the main game room are just cheap painted paneling which was nailed to the studs (no insulation between the block walls and the paneling)
-The floor was not leveled before the carpeting was laid
-Some of the walls are very weak and actually creak if I push on them (no walls are load bearing)
-Doors are not hung straight

The basement currently consists of a few rooms:
-Mud room that connects to back porch and garage
-10X10 storage room
-Furnace/storage area
-Laundry room
-Large game room
-Small full bath (stand-up shower)

I’d like to rip out everything and start from scratch. The most important thing for me will be to make sure that there are no leaking issues. After that I wanted to re-frame the walls and insulate all exterior walls. I also wanted to make the area much more open and remove the walls that separate the mud room, storage room and game room. Essentially, there would be one big room with an entry way that is tiled and the rest would be carpeted, we’d then have a separate furnace/laundry room and then the bathroom. No utilities will need to be moved which makes the job a lot easier, but I’ve never done anything like this by myself.

I wanted to hear from other people to see if they have ever undertaken something like this on their own and how it turned out. It should really just consist of demo (which I know I can do), insulating, framing, drywalling, leveling the floor, putting in a new shower stall, wiring for A/V stuff, and doing the flooring.

I think that I am capable of doing the framing and insulating, but I’ve never done it before. My only experience is small carpentry projects at home and building a large shed in my yard. I think I’d have someone else level the floor and lay carpet, but I’d do the tiling, drywalling, painting etc.

Are there many contractors out there that typically let the homeowner assist in the construction? I’d like to have someone else assist in the planning of the floorplan and moving the location of the stairs, but I’d like to be very hands-on with the rest of the process so that I can learn.

Any input or advice would be helpful.

2

I don’t know of any contractors off hand that work that way, especially if your work impacts their schedule, but one thing you might want to consider is having someone tape & mud the drywall joints if you have a lot of them. I know places will do that. Unless you particularly enjoy it. I’ve gotten better at it so that there is minimal sanding, but the pros hardly sand at all.

3

A watertight basement starts with proper drainage around the house. Gutters and downspouts etc. That would be where I would start. Unless it’s 100% dry all the time, you cold have issues down the road.

X…

4

Good luck finding a contractor willing to take you on basically as an apprentice.

5

You won’t find a contractor that will let you work with him. Why would a contractor take on the risk of you fucking up his work and then blaming him for it and he has to fix it?

What do you mean by “leveling” the floor? Are you going to pour new concrete or something?

6

The floors are all slanted towards the drain that is in the basement. It isn’t major, however I think it would have an impact on putting any tile or wood/laminate flooring in. I know there are self-leveling compounds that you can use or you can pour concrete to get rid of the slope on the floor.

7

why not lay a false wood floor and level that out. that would be much easier than pouring concrete

8

look into a dry-lok system of subflooring…its special modular flooring panels that are coated on one side with bubbled plastic/rubber so water can run to the drain underneath it and you can put whatever flooring over it you want.

9

That’s what I plan on using once the floor is level. I’ve seen a number of contractors use that stuff on the DIY Channel and HGTV. It’s a little bit expensive, but well worth the money I think.

10

They make a self-leveling cement that you mix and pour, but it requires more human interaction than you think it would.

11

Home Depot carries those panels.

I assume you’re doing a drop ceiling? Using 2x4’s & plywood for a floor starts taking away from ceiling height. We had an extra course and a half of block to work with for a drop ceiling. Just something to consider.

12

i’m not an expert by any means, but i did just finish my basement a few months ago.

unless it’s a significant slant for drainage, i wouldn’t bother trying to level it out. You want the water to still go to the drain if it ever floods. Unless you feel like you’re walking uphill would i consider leveling it out. I left my basement with a sloped floor and the only way i can tell is a dresser is about 1" away from the wall a the top, and butt against at the floor.

13

Well right now, there is a dropped ceiling but I was going to put up sheet rock when we remodel due to the floor height going up. I was still going to do a dropped ceiling, however, in the area where all the plumbing from the upstairs bathroom is. I wouldn’t want to cut through the sheet rock later on if we needed to get access to the plumbing. I figure whatever height we lose from changing the floor will be gained when we do sheet rock on the ceiling.