The Basement Bedroom Suite Plan

As I mentioned in part 1, there is a no-man's land of wasted space between all these doors (into the bathroom, bedroom, small closet, and utility room).  That space is about to be put to very good use.

The wall that forms the basement stairway (and encloses the tiny closet) will be continued past the closet to the back wall of the house's foundation, broken only by one doorway.  Opposite this new wall, against the wall to the uitility room, I will build a closet or install storage cabinets.  This will form a short hallway, which has one door to the left entering the new bedroom suite, and one to the right entering the utility room. 

As you enter the bedroom, there will be a good-sized closet to the left.  It will have sliding doors, there isn't enough room for a walk-in nor does it need to be a walk-in closet since it is in its own dressing room.  The former tiny closet will be tucked into the right end of this new closet, a spot for shelves to tuck seldom-used items away.  The bathroom door stays where it is, the bedroom door also stays where it is.  There is a wall of about 3 feet between the two where a narrow dresser could go. 

With this new layout, I have multiplied the storage space and made the bedroom into a suite.  Yes, the children will need to go into that suite if they need to use the bathroom while they are playing in the basement playroom.  That is a small price to pay to have a really nice basement guest suite.

The floor will be wood laminate, I think we'll replace even the vinyl in the bathroom with it, for a seamless surface within the suite.  The ceiling of the bathroom is still drywall, but the rest of the suite will need to have a ceiling put in.  I like the look of the tin-ceiling style tiles.  You can get them in the nail-up panels or lay-in panels for a suspended ceiling grid system.  Here is one I think is pretty:

Since our kitchen plumbing and electrical wires are above that ceiling (and because we be installing central-vac piping through there eventually), we need to have a suspended ceiling. 

The egress window will have to wait for now, but it is on the required list of things to add in the future.  I have noticed several houses in our neighborhood have them, and I do not think we would want to risk our house being considered one bedroom short because of a window if we end up selling this house.  Besides, it is safer. 

Check back for more information about the progress on the basement remodel, especially the basement bedroom guest suite, and my plans for decorating it!

 

Posted by Caeli at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The basement of this house has presented a quandary since we first moved in.  It was a finished basement, supposedly.  But it was not really ready to be lived in.  The first thing that had to be done, even before we closed on the house, was to have a radon removal system installed (by the previous owner, a relocation company).  The granite bedrock around here makes radon problems common, and this house had been tested with an elevated level.  Presumably it is fine now, since there is a pipe under the foundation and a fan pulling out the poisonous radioactive gas so we will presumably not suffer cancer for living here. 

The basement had wall-to-wall carpeting throughout, except for the utility room and a recently installed bathroom (which includes a glass-walled shower).  The bathroom floor is vinyl.  The walls of the basement are drywalled, though we had to cut out and replace some of it when water damage caused some mold to form a colony there. 

The ceiling, except in the bathroom and the so-called bedroom, was suspended ceiling, with many canister lights.  Much of the ceiling (including the drywalled ceiling in the bedroom) has been taken down because of the kitchen remodel we did two summers ago. 

The kids' playroom takes up most of the basement.  The carpet was taken out (due to the mold) and replaced with some light-colored laminate flooring.  The walls are now a sunny yellow.  They had been painted with a barnyard theme mural but that was destroyed when we had to cut out the moldy drywall.  We have nailed in white beadboard paneling to the bottom third of the wall, and there will be chairrail above that.  Someday.  We also installed an entertainment center/toy storage system along one long wall.  It's not a bad space, when it's clean.

It is the bedroom area of the finished basement that has made us ponder and say "hmmm."  It is such an odd layout.  The bathroom is triangle shaped, and the hypotanus wall forms one of the bedroom walls, making that room into an elongated pentagon.  There is one tiny closet under the stairs.  In the middle of the doorways to the closet, bathroom, bedroom and utility room is this big open area of nothingness.  Because of the position of the doors, there isn't even a good spot to put in a closet, and we sure need more storage space. 

The bedroom has one tiny foundation window.  It should not even count as a bedroom without having an egress window, but the house was sold to us as a 4 bedroom home, including the basement bedroom.  

I think I have finally figured out what to do, however.  The question is, can we do it in time for my friend's upcoming visit?  She will be staying for several days and it would be great if she had her own private space, rather than ousting one of my kids out of their bedroom.  It will also be handy for my inlaws when they visit, also usually a several-day stay.  In the meantime, my husband uses that bathroom and keeps his clothes down there... in piles around the floor or crammed into that tiny closet.  It is time to do something and I have a plan that will create a gorgeous basement bedroom suite that will have me tempted to move into the basement.

More about my basement remodel bedroom suite plan.

Posted by Caeli at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Our kitchen remodel was conceived on paper and drawn to scale on the Lowes kitchen designer's cad program.  We had selected some mid-grade (yet expensive) cabinets.  Now we had to decide about the countertops.  The first choice we had to make was was to blow the budget on expensive
granite, quartz or Corian countertops or go cheaper (still not cheap) and get laminate countertops?

Why not laminate countertops?

I had to admit there are some really nice looking laminate countertops out there.  In retrospect I wish we had gone that route and saved some money.  But at the time I was thinking, no matter how realistic (to a stone-look) the pattern, you will still see the seams and they will still look like thick chunky laminate countertops.  You could pay extra for nice bevels or other cool finishes on the edges, but by the time you spend money on that you might as well take it to the next level and go granite.

Granite countertops colors limited

Granite was definately what the sales people were pushing.  I have come to understand there were
probably incentives behind that.  I had originally ruled out granite countertops thinking they would be way to expensive. I thought that the Granite countertops colors were limited at Lowes too. I admit I was surprised to learn that at Lowes at least, the price was similar between granite, quartz and Corian countertops.

Corian Countertops vs. Quartz Countertops

What I really wanted was Corian countertops. My mom has Corian countertops in her kitchen.  They have been there for over 20 years and they still look as good as the day they were put in. 

 

 

Why not laminate countertops?

I had to admit there are some really nice looking laminate countertops out there.  In retrospect I wish we had gone that route and saved some money.  But at the time I was thinking, no matter how realistic (to a stone-look) the pattern, you will still see the seams and they will still look like thick chunky laminate countertops.  You could pay extra for nice bevels or other cool finishes on the edges, but by the time you spend money on that you might as well take it to the next level and go granite.

Granite countertops colors limited

Granite was definately what the sales people were pushing.  I have come to understand there were
probably incentives behind that.  I had originally ruled out granite countertops thinking they would be way to expensive. I thought that the Granite countertops colors were limited at Lowes too. I admit I was surprised to learn that at Lowes at least, the price was similar between granite, quartz and Corian countertops.

Corian Countertops vs. Quartz Countertops

What I really wanted was Corian countertops. My mom has Corian countertops in her kitchen.  They have been there for over 20 years and they still look as good as the day they were put in. 

I also loved the look of the seamless sink installation you could get with Corian countertops.  Of course that was one expensive sink option compared to dropping in a regular sink, but I really longed for a low-bacteria situation, no cracks to scrape out with a butter knife or scrub with a toothbrush.  

So why did I end up buying quartz countertops?  Well, I guess I was dazzled by the look and popularity of granite but liked the alternate pattern and color available in the quartz.  I was also promised that the seams would be almost invisible, and the sink installation would have no crevices for gunk to collect.

Corian countertops, they told me, would chip and you would still see the seams. Corian would stain, the salespeople said. Funny my mom's countertops have no chips and no visible seams along the one long stretch she has in her galley-style kitchen.  She had always been able to easily scour away any stains on her bisque countertops.  I had always appreciated the way food spills wiped easily away.

So why did I end up buying quartz countertops again?

I must have not been thinking straight, or maybe the kids were driving us crazy while we were making our decision.  Oh they look beautiful, don't get me wrong:

But the seams are visible in certain lights, and the sink installation is a disaster.  Gunk accumulates in the place where the undermount sink meets the quartz countertop. And they are nigh impossible to clean.  Food gets stuck on them and you have to practically chisel it off, or leave a soapy wet rag sitting there soaking the stuck-on stuff for a while before you can finish wiping the countertop down.

When you consider the cost (about $70 a square foot) it was not worth it.  I should have spent a little more (because of the sink) and gotten the Corian.  Yes I would have gone with the "cheap"
Corian in one of the less exotic color patterns, but at least it would be easy to clean.

What I really should have done is voted for the laminate kitchen countertops, saved a little money, and had less regrets.  Lessen learned and passed on to you, so buyer beware when you are shopping for kitchen countertop material!

Posted by Caeli at 07:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Bathroom renovations are about as complicated as they come (with the possible exception of a kitchen renovation).  In addition to all the usual suspects-- drywall, flooring, paint, etc-- you have the addition of plumbing.  As soon as you cross that line, you enter a different world.  

We've renovated three bathrooms in our time.  The first was a complete gut and rebuild, replacing 50 year old tiles on the walls and ceiling with drywall and a laminate floor.  Luckily, we only attempted to replace the toilet and sink, which are basically simple changes (unless you break the toilet flange...not that we know anything about that.)

The second bathroom was more extensive, changing the location of the toilet, reversing the bathtub plumbing (making the head the foot and vice versa), an entirely new sink location, etc..  That totally crossed the line into hard-core plumbing, and it helped to have professionals in the family to make the serious decisions regarding drain slopes and the like.

The third bathroom was actually the simplest, with mainly painting work and a replaced toilet.

So now we're starting to turn our attention to the kid's bathroom.  For some inexplicable reason, we are faced with some odd design decisions.  First off, we have a countertop that runs the length of one wall, and that includes going over the toilet tank.  So you have the tank against the wall, and three inches above the tank is a counter that runs over to the sink area.  As near as I can figure, no one has opened this toilet tank in 20 years.  That's rather disgusting.  Not to mention complicated.  Now, in order to replace the toilet, I'm basically replacing the sink countertop as well.  Fun!  

The other issue we need to deal with is the tub plumbing.  It appears that the plumbing was installed upside down.  At least, the overflow drain is upside down.  It also leaks and there is no access from the other side (which is the master bathroom).  We're trying to avoid the pandora's box of one bathroom leading to renovating the entire second story plumbing system.  What we'd like to do is at least paint, install flooring, and upgrade the toilet and sink countertop.  We'll see how it goes.

Storage is also an issue in this bathroom, basically because it has none.  No closets for towels, no medicine cabinet, nothing.  So we'll need to work that in.  This bathroom is an example of why we sometimes think we should have waited before buying this house.  The design seems fundamentally flawed, with a toilet you can't maintain and no storage.  It's easy to wonder just what were they thinking when they put the house together?  But, hammer in hand and safety goggles on, we're ready to correct that thinking!

Posted by Caeli at 07:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)