Click here to see books about Planning and Design ... or ... Click here to see Design Software

Planning and Design is the first step to a beautiful basement. It is important to measure your basement space and decide what you want various areas used for. Planning and design for your basement is an important part to creating an inviting living space. Your goal is to make the best use of that basement space. You do not want to design your space to look like a boxed in chopped up basement in any way if possible. Some basements can be very complicated to design due to duct work, pipes, poles and other obstructions. You want to try and plan for a nice flowing open floor plan that fits your lifestyle, budget and ideas. Hopefully the books and software listed above will help you to create many different designs that will fit your individual space. Step 1 is to measure the available space. It is important to measure the space and decide what you want various areas used for. Measuring most basements is relatively easy. With a little practice you can easily work out the total square footage of the space you have to work with. Having the square footage available is also very helpful when estimating the materials you will need. Rectangular rooms are relatively simple to measure. First sketch out the room, marking the position of any existing windows, doorways, stairs and utilities. Please be sure to also draw in any poles that may be used for support. Measure the length and width of the basement remembering to include the depth of any alcoves or other recesses. You may need to split your space up into more manageable squares in order to get a more precise square footage. After you have made your simple sketch, just multiply the width times the length to calculate floor space and repeat the same process with the walls to calculate wall area. Now you are ready to take your sketch, make a few copies and start deciding different ways to divide up the space and get the most use out of it. Try to be as creative as possible with your plans. Consider home theater rooms, custom bars, exercise rooms, playrooms, mini kitchens, baths, workshops, and hobby rooms as well as extra bedrooms and storage areas. Please visit Plan 3D where you can easily design and print your project floorplans. This is a site we use every day and we have also found it works well for remodeling kitchens, baths, and creating house plans. After you get a floor plan together you can go on to the next step which is layout of your basement. Tips & Tricks When you need a precise measurement between two walls, or you simply can’t reach the whole way across, use this technique. Push your tape against the far wall, extend it almost to the middle of the room and mark the wall at the nearest whole foot. Jot the dimension on the wall for reference. Now turn your tape around and measure from the opposite wall to your mark. Add the two dimensions for the total length. Tips & Tricks Buy a top-quality 25 or 35ft. tape with a 1-in. wide blade. The extra stiffness provided by the wide blade allows you to extend the tape farther before it buckles. This is a great help for all kinds of measuring tasks but is especially useful when you’re working alone. It’s also useful when you’re working from a ladder. Tips & Tricks Measure from the bottom up. To measure tall walls, butt the tape against the floor and extend it to the ceiling. Bend it over at the ceiling and “eyeball” the measurement. You’ll be able to get within 1/4 in. of an exact height. Yes, we can recommend Professional Contractors in your area who will help you to finish your basement. This is one of our most frequently asked questions. Our professional contractors will come to your home and give you a free estimate, so you can see how much it would cost to get your basement finished by a pro. They can also give you a rough estimate of how much you can save by doing some or all of the work yourself. Contact Professional Contractors in your area. Just a little guidance can save you lots of time and headaches. New Information --- Several of our customers have asked us to add House Plans to our site. We are happy to announce that we have started creating a new page specifically for house plans and it should be open soon. While we are working on it please check out Plan 3D They have several floor plans available.

Listed below are books that can help you with the planning process.

Listed below is home design software currently listed for sale on ebay.

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