Our basement rental... realized (September 2013)

When we decided to buy our house in Blanding, Melissa had the idea to make a rental apartment in the basement.  During the mortgage paperwork we mentioned Melissa's idea to the woman helping with the loan, mostly to justify why the two of us were buying a 5600 sqft home, and didn't think anything more of it.  A few weeks after we closed on the house that same woman called to tell us she had found a tenant for our apartment.  The only problem was we didn't have an apartment, we had a basement missing its ceiling and without a kitchen.  We met with the tenant, decided we wanted him in our apartment and signed a lease... giving us ~4 weeks to finish the basement. It took 6 weeks... because the walls aren't straight which meant the guy doing the ceiling had to measure three times and cut four times for each piece of sound proofing and sheet rock.

 

With only two windows in the entire basement, Melissa wanted to bring in as much natural light as possible and replaced the solid door with a window door.

 

This hallway is bright and welcoming in the day time... a good feature of a front door.

 Have no fear for wasted material. The solid door made a perfect addition to the internal stairs between our space and the basement.  We hired a friend to build out the landing and install the door.

 

Before the door, there was just a stairwell with a standard interior door at top. The light switch on the right is the stairwell.

 

 

Under the stair case was a nice little storage space...

  Or a kitchen pantry if you think like Melissa... and the internet.

 

Prepping to hang the kitchen cabinets.

 

Ever wanted a kitchen in your garage? We had one for a few weeks, not very functional.

 

Almost done right?

 

Yep, pretty much!  Thanks to the help of two pharmacist friends (one a former plumber, Chad, and the other just a great worker, Albert) and a phone call from the Stake President.  President Mike Redd owns a plumbing and HVAC company. I called Mike to ask his help, he was on the mountain hunting and gave me a few pointers.  He called me back while I had my head in the cabinet under the sink yelling at a pipe, ready to give up on myself.  President Redd dialed my number by "accident" (aka inspiration) and was surprised to hear my voice on the line, as he way trying to call someone else.  He talked me through a couple options and I was able to get the sink hooked up and turn the water back on to the house that afternoon.

 Plenty of storage... the cabinets are actually very white in real life.

 

I hate how much space counter top microwaves take away from your prep/cooking area so I came up with this solution. (Yeah, I did have ONE idea of my own during this whole process.) The renter puts his trash can under this shelf adding to the utility of the space.

 

Having removed the drop ceiling we had the neighborhood electricians (literally 1 block away) reduce the light drops from ~17 down to 10 and reroute a few switches.

Then the workers started the sound proofing and sheet rock. 

 

Of course the soundproofing isn't perfect, but it cuts the sound transmission by over 50% compared to the old drop ceiling tiles. Replacing the drop ceiling also adds ~5 more inches to the room height and looks much prettier.

 

This is the large bedroom.  In the first picture you can see the steel window well. 

And now looking at the wooden terraced window well, there is much more light and you can see the sky.  That is technically a premium feature for most basement dwellers.

 

The largest bedroom isn't a bedroom at all.  The laundry room is huge, but without a closet or window we can't list it as a bedroom.  That cupboard above the washer/dryer is one of our refinished cabinets purchased from somebody in town.  We stripped them, painted them white and hung them in the basement.  To the left there are two more cabinets with a long shelf and clothing rod. Outside the bathroom we hung a large cabinet as a linen storage. The shelves at the back of the pantry (above) are actually a cabinet body also.

 

The whole renovation took a little longer and cost more than planned (surprise, surprise). We really like the finished product though and the people we hired did great work.