Anyone here into basements?

[frank_c]

i'm not planning on doing much "work" in my basement. i did take out a poorly-placed wall the PO put in to hide a storage area. one room is 13x19 and will probably be a theater/guitar room, the room i took the wall out of will be 13x13 and maybe a lounge/game room, and that will leave a 9x12 laundry and storage space. i've only been here six months so this will be a long-term project.

got a bathroom w/shower down there too, that will probably get updated first.

 

[mpr455]

here is some more pics of my basement shop. the door was a flea market find that was fitted to the existing jamb. my buddy who had a sign shop came and gold leafed the lettering. best 10 bucks i ever spent! the drill press came from the milwaukee road railroad engine house that they where tearing down in chicago. i restored it completly. pretty proud of that one. the paneling is pegboard and melamine sheet. the stuff is a pleasure to work with and i can write on the walls any time i want.

 

[SPDMETL]

Here in Phoenix, if you ask the builder for a basement they will say too rocky for a basement to dig. Then they will ask you if you want the inground pool option!

This ! I wonder if it's as simple as, no one knows how to build a foundation underground ?

 

[tcianci]

I used to have a 25x35 basement with a 11x13 dog leg. Then I built the "playroom" and the "office" and the closets. Now i'm in a 13 x 47 section and that's a pretty good square footage but with the benches on the long dimensions it's a better bowling alley than a shop. I have a lathe, mill, table saw, 2 bandsaws, thickness planer, jointer, drill press, router table, arbor press and several racks for stock down there. It's kinda crowded. After the kids are moved out I hope to reclaim some of the space. I hope my wife doesn't read this
The heat from the boiler keeps it nice down there all winter and in the sumer I can run a dehumidifier if I want to because it's pretty cool down there and taking some of the humidity out makes it just like AC. I have never had water down there fortunately so everything stays nice. Another thing I did was use all the odd paint I have to paint the concrete walls. After that I put a coat of white over everything. The odd paint filled in the concrete and made it look alot better, the white really brightens things up and makes the lighting more uniform.

 

[PassnThru]

I've always thought that basements were cool. Around here, you don't see many. The ones you see are mostly houses built into a hill where the 'basement' is completely open on one side. I always assumed that it was this way for two reasons: land is cheaper here - most basements are in areas where land is expensive and you build up and down to maximize the lack of space. And it is clay and rock around here - in our county we have a community called Rockfield. It deserves that name. Great place for a quarry.
On a side note - considering the benefits, I'm surprised we aren't building more houses that are mostly underground.