As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been working on my mother-in-law, Mary’s, basement in an effort to take it from a complete blank slate unfinished space, to a livable, multi-bedroom finished and furnished product. Predictably, progress has been slow. Fortunately our original timeline of completing the job by the end of March is no longer. Since our out-of-town guests (the motivation behind adding more bedrooms to her house in the first place) leave us on a Friday, they can fit comfortably in the upstairs bedrooms for their whole stay. We originally expected a night or two where we’d need extra bedrooms for my small family to join for an overnighter, but since it will be the workweek that is no longer an issue.
So, now we can just focus on trying to move and getting Camp Davis ready for their arrival instead. [Insert brow-wipe here]. Of course, we’re still geared for work. And having already framed out half the walls, there is no way I can just sit idly by wondering when I’ll get to complete the project.
Since I can’t physically work on this from home, I thought I’d take a minute to show you the plans as we made for the full build-out.
In a previous post I used a tool called Autodesk Homestyler (a free “app” from Google Chrome) to help show a fellow blogger my suggestions for her way-too-big foyer. It’s a neat program and while it has its limitations, it seems more than serviceable for my needs.
Here’s Mary’s basement as is:
And for my initial rough cut “artists” rendering, via Autodesk Homestyler, here is her basement’s general layout:
The plan is to create two bedrooms, some space for unruly basement storage, some sort of definable laundry space, and a walkway/hallway that flows easily from the garage door (on the left) to the laundry room and bedrooms, and to the stairs and front door (right).
What we came up with will hopefully one day look like this:
The small room (bottom left) will be for “kids.” Because of door placement, HVAC ductwork overhed, and the stairwell we had no choice but to make it small – almost galley like. But it has windows (for airing out), and we’re no strangers to cramming in some bunk-beds for maximum sleep space (which is all it will be used for). The laundry room would be open, as the entry to the large bedroom shares a wall with it. At the end of the bedroom (to the right) is a large storage space that includes the central HVAC system. The front of the house (bottom right) will be more storage (plus a place for the furnace and oil tank), and just outside it’s door makes for a convenient pantry and back-up fridge or deep freezer (as the kitchen is right at the top of the stairs).
It should look like this in 3D:
Right now, it looks more like this:
and this:
In time. In time…
by 
