A home theater takes advantage of a basement's lack of windows.
One of the most neglected rooms in many homes is the basement. While it's easy to consider a basement only useful for storage or appliances like a water heater and furnace, there are ways to turn your basement into useful, livable space. Remodeling a built-in basement is an inexpensive alternative to a home addition and you can choose the project that best suits your particular needs.
Home Theater
One idea well suited to a built-in basement is a home theater or media room. The fact that a basement contains few or no windows will make darkening it for a movie theater atmosphere easy. Most home theaters center around a large television or a screen with a video projector. You can also use the media room to store your collection of CDs, videos, DVDs and other media, while keeping a smaller portion of the collection in a living room on the main floor. Be sure to select comfortable chairs or couches for a home theater, or install actual movie theater-style seats. A wet bar or mini refrigerator will make it easy to have snacks and drinks on hand for viewing sessions.
Play Room
Another basement idea is a children's play room. For the floor, use a soft mat over the basement's cement base. This will make for a surface that's safe for play and easier to clean than carpet. For the walls use drywall or paneling that is easy to paint or replace once it begins to show wear. Finally, store toys and games in a cabinet or toy chest, leaving the rest of the house (relatively) free from kids' clutter.
Lounge
A basement lounge can be a great way to entertain guests in privacy and without needing to prepare or clean the entire house. Many basements have modest bars, but adding a wet bar, bathroom, sitting area, television or fireplace can turn it into a casual, comfortable place to enjoy food, drinks and conversation. You can decorate a basement lounge with sports memorabilia that might seem out of place elsewhere in a more formal home, or add a stereo system or jukebox, pool table and dart board to give it a bar atmosphere.
Workshop
Many built-in basements already serve as a makeshift workshop, or at least as a storage place for tools. However, the classical basement wood shop is only one option for turning the basement into a place to get things done. Just about any hobby will benefit from having its own space where you can store items and leave work out in the open until you have time to attend to it. A basement workshop can be as simple as adding a table and chairs or a storage cabinet to the existing space. Or you may want to add something more elaborate like a spray booth for painting projects or a small photo studio for developing film or shooting in a controlled environment. Basement workshops are a good idea for people who participate in anything from collecting or model building to wine making and photography.
Exercise Room
One final idea for a built-in basement is to transform it into an exercise room. Large exercise machines like a treadmill or stair machine are bulky and can be difficult to store elsewhere in the house. Setting them up in the basement keeps them out of sight of visitors and also allows you to work out in privacy, without all of the distractions of the home. You can add a television or radio for some entertainment as you work, or install large floor mats for yoga, stretching or aerobic exercise.
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