Envisioning Your Basement and Bonus Room’s Potential

As the seasons change, many of us dream of creating cozy spaces for our families and guests to curl up in. Your basement has the potential to add the living space your family needs and get you that bonus room you have been dreaming of for years. Here are some considerations to help you look past the cracked walls and cobwebs of your basement.

1. Work the structural elements into the design

When looking at the layout for your basement remodel, try not to fight the location of the existing structural members. Moving posts and beams can be costly and trigger upgrades to meet current codes. Your best bet is to integrate the posts and beams into design elements. This can be as simple as hiding them within new walls. Posts can be used as an end point for half walls or could be exposed as design features.

2. Don’t forget the rest of your home

In finishing your basement, you will be restricting access to the systems that service the rest of your house. This is the perfect time to look at the state of your electrical, plumbing and HVAC. If your remodel requires these systems to move, then think about what upgrades can be combined to get the most out of your investment. Central air, re-piping of your house and additional outlets for the floors above are great additions to the scope of a basement remodel.

3. Level of finish

It’s up to you to determine what level of finish and investment you want to put into this project. If you are not looking to add legal livable square feet, there are plenty of ways to clean up your basement and make it function better for you and your family. You’d be surprised how big an impact you can make by cleaning and painting the walls and ceiling. Pair this with a lighting plan to brighten the dark corners and add warmth with furniture.

4. Classic or Contemporary?

Understanding the architectural details that define the era of your home will help you when planning the aesthetic of your remodel–whether you want to design within the style of your home or move in a different direction. Looking at the architectural elements, like existing millwork and built-ins, can help. Think of your basement as a blank canvas and have fun making it reflect your personal style.

5. Flexibility is key

One great way to approach your basement remodel is to plan for the spaces to have multiple uses. Do you need a dedicated guest room or can that also be a home office? If you are adding a bathroom and currently have laundry on this level, think about combining these rooms to save on plumbing costs and space. Are you comfortable with your new guest suite being used as a part time rental? Better to ask yourselves these questions now than later.

6. Creative Storage

It’s easy to focus on how much space you will be gaining by finishing your basement, but don’t forget about what you are giving up. The typical basement acts as a catch-all for the items that we don’t want in the rest of our house. It is important to plan on how and where those items will get stored once the basement is finished. Hidden doors, built-ins and creative pantries are all great options to keep your basement looking spic and span after the remodel.

7. Does your remodel have the potential to work for you?

It’s hard to escape the ADU and Airbnb discussion when considering a basement remodel. The first step will be to assess what the current structure of your home lends itself to. There are differences between the requirements for an attached ADU and converting your basement to a livable space. Make sure you explore how each option affects the scope of work and what benefits you will see once the project is complete before moving forward with your design.

These are just some of the topics that will be addressed at Arciform’s Basement and Bonus Rooms Workshop on November 9th at 6pm at the Hotel deLuxe.

Contact martha@arciform.com to be added to the event wait list.

Click here to hear more from the Arciform design team.
http://www.arciform.com/

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Understanding the Design Process: 2nd Steps

Whether you’ve never tackled a remodeling project before or you’re a seasoned home-improvement pro, the design process can seem daunting at times. Many firms have their own way of doing things and sometimes these methods are a bit convoluted or mysterious.

In this series, we’ll take you on a step-by-step tour through the Arciform design process so that you know what to expect when planning a home improvement project. In case you missed it – be sure to start with Part 1 which covers the first steps in the design process, measuring and documenting existing conditions.

Step 3: Conceptual Design

After documenting the existing conditions, Senior Designer Kristyn Bester was able to come up with a number of options for this cottage remodel based on the client’s wants and needs for the space. Here at Arciform it is important to us to respect the history and architecture of your home, so the designer will always keep that in mind when designing.

One of the client’s main goals was to open up the kitchen with an addition off the back of the house. After coming up with a few preliminary designs, Kristyn presented the client with some options like the one above here in the design office. This first design meeting covers the schematics and general layout of the design. You will get to see what it feels like to be in your remodeled space.

Sometimes it can be hard to visualize your remodel from just a floor plan; luckily, the program we use enables you to see perspectives like the one above which are very true to how the final product will look.

Step 4: Details, details, details! 

The steps following the first meeting can be very fun, or at least we designers think so! We will pick out the materials, finishes and fixtures that give the remodel flare and character. You can have as little or as much involvement in this process as you like. We find Pinterest to be a particularly great tool for clients and designers to use during the initial design stages; see the joint board that Senior Designer Kristyn Bester and the client started together here.

Once the space planning and layout for the kitchen and the nook addition was complete, it was time to get into the details of the plans and specifications. The specifications help to create a purchasing “to-do” list for the items which need to be selected. The plans include elevations of all walls to help detail out spatial needs for the rooms affected, including any special notes of concern for our field crew. Designers will often sit down with the client to go through each elevation within the remodeled space, addressing any aesthetic and spatial concerns.

This elevation example shows the type of details that need to be addressed which aren’t always easy to see in plan view, such as how the lights & shelves line up and the relationship between vertical elements such as backsplash and mouldings.

The final phase of design is the technical jargon that provides “instructions” for what is to be built and what that entails, such as permitting and engineering and the like. Stay tuned!

-Tara Keefner, co-author

Understanding the Design Process: 1st Steps

Whether you’ve never tackled a remodeling project before or you’re a seasoned home-improvement pro, the design process can seem daunting at times. Many firms have their own way of doing things and sometimes these methods are a bit convoluted or mysterious.

In this series, we’ll take you on a step-by-step tour through the Arciform design process so that you know what to expect when planning a home improvement project. As you follow along with this 1928 English cottage remodel, you will learn what to expect, how we work and why we do what we do!

Step 1: Measuring the Site and Recording Exiting Conditions

After the Initial Design Consultation, Senior Designer Kristyn Bester and the Arciform design team visited the home to measure the existing floor plan and site footprint of this charming cottage. The goal of the site measure is to document every single detail down to the nitty-gritty. We document the existing materials, millwork profiles, door and window styles, etc – and occasionally get into your dusty crawlspaces – all in an effort to mitigate any issues with the unforeseen during the construction phase.

The client had multiple phases in mind for this cottage project, making a whole-house site measure the best solution. A whole-house site measure allows the design team to understand how all floors of a home are being affected when designing; it also helps to smooth the transition between phases and, of course, you will have a set of current and accurate plans for your house!

Step 2: Turning the Measurements and Documentations into a Drawing

After measuring the space and documenting the details, we bring all of the information back to the office to draw up in our CAD software. This “as built” drawing then serves as a canvas for the design. Our computer program also creates a 3D model which lends the opportunity to generate different types of drawings & renderings, making it easy for the designer and client to visualize an accurate depiction of the possibilities.

Above is the “as built” floor plan for our example cottage, which gives a good idea of the kind of information you can expect to find on this plan. Different symbols & tags help the designers easily identify what is going on in the space. For example, the red symbols & lines represent mechanical, electrical & plumbing elements; the blue hatching means that there are no changes being made to the space.

Stay tuned for the next installment on our journey through the design process, outlining the “conceptual design” phase of this Laurelhurst home remodel.

-Tara Keefner, co-author