Sierra Jones I am amazed! This is one of the nicest basements I have ever seen. No lie. The colours, the space, the lighting....all beautiful. If this was my basement, I don't think I could ever get my husband upstairs...lol!
My favourite is how the chairs pop in that gorgeous blue colour. Well done!

Reuben Ahmed Looks good, will give me some ideas myself. I like the wall fireplace, although I'll probably go electric. How did you do this in 2 months? This looks like 20K+ worth of work. I've been workign on my basement for 4-5 months and I'm less than half done.

Chris Albrecht interested in rough budget figure

vee22 Chris, they never mention the BUDGET because most people can't afford these renos, only the one per centers. It more than likely cost upwards of hundreds of thousands. Also, what happened to the furnace and all the mechanicals?

Reuben Ahmed I can tell you that Pool table is about $7000 based on our local high end pool/shuffleboard dealer. Based on this being done in 2 months, it is a wealthy build. You can do SIMILAR, but it will just take much longer. I demolished my basement 2 years ago and I only really started working on it 4-5 months ago. I'm not near done...

The projector setup is cheaper than many people imagine. 1080p Projectors start at $1000 nowadays. You can expect to pay $400+ per reclining chair though.

My guesstimate on this build is only 20K though, when you add everything up they have it's actually not that much - it might take you 4 years to do (spending 5K a year to do a section). Consider the builder will "finish" your basement for 8-10K, this is a much better "deal".

astraea Maybe it's not an issue in Virginia, but in New Jersey the cold would rise up from the floor, and hardwood or laminate flooring in a basement, wouldn't be very cozy much of the year. That's one place I like having wall-to-wall carpet.

Reuben Ahmed Astraea, I live in Ohio. I installed radiant electric heating mats underneath the floor (240V). This kind of stuff has to be planned for (installing an electrical sub-panel for 240V breakers just for heating).

One of the reasons I demolished my "finished" basement, was it was way too cold in the winter. I like the look of laminate, and it allows under floor heating to work better than through carpet. My basement before this WAS carpet, and it still felt pretty cold!

There's also a reason they have a fireplace down there I'm sure. =D

After I installed underfloor heating under the laminate, and used solid core doors ($60 at your local hardware store) to section off rooms in the basement - my home theater room down there is the hottest room in the house!

astraea @Reuben - Curious to know the impact on your electric bill!

Reuben Ahmed Me too, lol. It does have have an impact. it also has a thermostat though, so you can keep it off during the day/etc. It seems to maintain heat OK once set to 75 or so. It definitely takes the chill out of the air, and your feet warm (if you're not wearing socks). If you pump it up at 80+, it will heat up the room big time. I'm running two zones right now, one for my home theater room - the other for the hallway outside of it. I'm running some more laminate in the "game" section (kind of where this guy's fireplace is) - I'm debating paying another chunk of money for underfloor heating - or buying a nice fireplace for the look. Underfloor heating is usually about $10 a square ft.

donnagrogan my big concern is the ceiling - I love the look of a finished ceiling, but most contractors recommend dropped ceilings in the basement to allow easy access for pipes, vents, etc. How do you get the look of this ceiling but still maintain easy access to what is above it?

rajverma2000 the pool table lighting is un-even (you can see how spotty even in the pics) It may match the rest of room lighting, but pendant lighting is not good for pool table play.

wantsideas Thanks for showing us the before picture! It seems very well done. I've got lots to do on my main level so basement is years, if ever, away.

knup342 I wanted to thank Houzz for all the great inspiration! I just finished my basement and wanted to share some photos. Almost every idea came from this awesome site.

Reuben Ahmed Knup, very nice. I hate the steelers though, mate! Is that an inset fireplace, what's that glass next to the trampoline? Thanks!

Reuben Ahmed By the way, here is a sneak preview of my basement. This is the "hallway" to the theater(s).

knup342 Thanks for the comment Reuben! I'm not sure what glass you are refering to? The grey framed piece is a magnetic chalkboard. Below is a better pic of it.

rajverma2000 knup342 - very nice. I like the black and gold theme in your basement!

Reuben Ahmed Black and Orange would have been better. xD.

sweet_p yeah but what happened with all the stuff that was stored in the basement? Is there a separate room? This is very nice but I would still need storage...

vwlizard We are in the process of redoing our basement and our contractor has told us that to run the electric for a radiant heat floor would be the same cost as running a 60 W light bulb. We are doing that under a beautiful tile that looks just like wood in the "mudroom" area of our basement (we use it as a primary entrance since it is attached to our garage), but I ended up going with carpet for the TV/Play area. Just wanted it be warmer/cozier/softer. Visited a lot of basements before I made that decision. If you can, visit a neighbors basement that has tile/laminate and stand on it for awhile before you commit to it.
As for the ceiling, no need to drop it to be able to get to pipe shut offs, etc. Just cut access holes and cover with a plate. Wish I had taken "before" pictures, but will be able to post my afters in a couple of weeks.

jpinva Hi everyone. This is Jeff Powell, owner of this basement. We just came across this article - hadn't realized it had been posted. I'll try to answer your questions/comments. First, it actually took about 6 months, but a lot of that was down time, waiting for pieces to arrive, inspections, etc. If everything was ready to go and the trades were all lined up, it could have been done in 2 months.

Yes, it was expensive. Total cost of everything start to finish including furnishings was in the neighborhood of $120K.

All the HVAC stuff is in the exercise room behind those double doors you see on the side. The systems (AC/heater and hot water heater) had to be moved around the corner to make room for the media room - this part was a big expense. All of the pipes go from the exercise room down the wall on the right side of the media room and up to the rest of the house. That wall you see is actually about 3 - 4 feet out from the concrete wall leaving room to actually walk down between walls to get to all the pipes and stuff if you need to. There is a hidden closet down in the corner of the media room to the right of the screen that houses all the media equipment and gives access to the other end of that "hall".

It never actually gets cold down there, believe it or not. The wood is only in that main area - everything else is carpeted or the rubber floor in the exercise room. We hardly ever use the fireplace like we thought we would. I think it's because the main heat for the first floor of the house comes from that unit in the basement, and so the air flow from the heater is very strong in the basement.

The pool table is definitely high end and expensive and I just liked the look of the pendant lights above it. I'm not a pro or anything so I didn't worry about the shadows on the table.

Thanks for all the compliments! We're really happy with how it turned out. I'll be glad to answer any other questions you have.

Reuben Ahmed NICE! Thanks for the budget quote.

simps214 @jpinva beautiful space and classy response-I hope your family has fun there

lauraco This is a beautiful basement! I'm curious about the statement "The remodel allowed for 8-foot ceilings throughout most of the renovated area." How did you remodel to get the 8-foot height?

jpinva Thanks! That line isn't really worded right. The pre-renovation ceiling height was 8-feet in the entire basement and since we didn't use a drop ceiling, the post-renovation height is also 8-feet (less the 1 inch or so for the drywall).

The interesting part was figuring out how to do the raised stadium seating in the media room. We ended up with a platform 18" above the regular floor for the back row. So you step up onto the riser as you walk into the media room, walk forward a couple of steps (just wide enough to put 2 love seats in the back row), and then you step back down to the regular floor height for the front row. When the article says the ceiling height is 6 ft 8 inches in the media room, that's actually referring to the back row where the floor is raised. The projector hangs over the back row and takes away a couple of more inches. We were able to only lose a couple of inches by cutting the ceiling up between the beams and hanging it from the cut-out. So you have to be less than 6 1/2 feet tall to enter our media room (or duck)!

You can see what I mean in this view of the media room:

mariarashelle This is Gorgeous! I love it!