Basements don’t have to be dingy, cold or full of cobwebs and clutter. They can be a beautiful space that serves multiple purposes and a fun hangout spot for the whole family. I’ve been dreaming of a DIY basement makeover FOREVER. After making a design plan and talking to a few contractors, I’m happy to report that we’re finally ready to move forward!
If you’re worried about the cost or the amount of work involved in making over an unfinished basement, this blog post is for you. I will show you the most creative ideas for a budget-friendly basement makeover, ways to make this (BIG) project achievable, how we plan to finish our own basement, and an estimate of project cost. Maybe finishing the basement is not as cost-prohibitive or time consuming as you think.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you decide to make a purchase via my links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you.
Our sad and uninviting junkyard
Welcome to our basement. It’s a little under 1200 square feet. Definitely has a lot of potential.
But I will be the first to admit, it is in a pretty sad state right now.
Clutters got a bit out of control in the last four years.
The one bedroom in the basement is currently used as my husband’s home office slash game room. (Imagine making Zoom calls in front of the 2×4 framing and boxes. Not cool.)
Next to the bedroom is a full-size bathroom, a utility room, and the rest is a large open space.
When we built the house, the builder completed the rough-in. So the pipes for waste, water and vent were brought in and can be extended at a later stage.
I’m thankful rough-in is done, but at the same time I’m kicking myself for not noticing a costly mistake. More on that in the “design plan” section of this post.
Ideas for a budget friendly basement makeover
You can really spend a fortune to finish a basement. But if you want to achieve a designer look without the hefty price tag, there are other options.
Some of the diy basement makeovers below show the instant transformation of simply insulating and framing the walls. Others are more cosmetic but make the living space feel 10x cozier.
Framing and drywall by Bright Green Door
Fresh coat of paint, including the exposed ceiling Painting By the Penny
DIY wood plank wall treatment by Cass Makes Home
Angel of The Wood Homestead has a whole series of her zero dollar basement makeover on Instagram. She only used materials she had on hand (paint, fabric, wallpaper, lights, etc.) to give this old and dilapidated space a transformation. You need to be so much more resourceful and discipline to pull off a challenging task like this. The results are incredible.
Ligia of Our Colonial Casa’s DIY basement makeover is another favorite of mine. She and her husband built a under stair bench, a wet bar, a banquette, and full room wall treatment. To lower the renovation cost, she made her own faux marble countertop, backsplash and shelving and spray painted the windows black.
IKEA hack built-in media center by Ashley Jolley
Incredible DIY Basement Renovation Time Lapse by Andrew Thron Improvements. This time lapse is pretty cool to watch. You can see the entire process of framing, drywall, fireplace, mudding, installing LVP, drop ceiling tile, baseboard, trim, window ledge and painting. His subtitle provides lots of details on the steps. If you’re starting from scratch, it’s a helpful reference.
What are we hiring out to finish the basement?
I thought about being the general contractor and doing most of the work myself with my husband’s help. This route can save a lot of labor costs, like what we were able to do with the deck (the entire process here).
But my husband thought it’d take too long for us to learn everything from scratch (true!). Plus, we would still need to hire someone for plumbing, HVAC, and mudding (also true!).
After consulting our contractor, we agreed to hire his team to complete the build for us.
- Framing
- Ductwork from the mechanical room to the bedroom
- Plumbing for the guest bath and wet bar
- Electrical throughout and low voltage for the home theater space
- Drywall installation
- Mudding drywall
- Door, window and door trim, baseboard
- Painting
They can finish everything in a few weeks at a reasonable price. I can kick up my feet and document the process.
What are we going to DIY to finish the basement?
With the most time-consuming and intimating part of the project outsourced, we will take on flooring, wall treatment, and cabinets. Custom cabinetry is one of the big ticket items in home renovation. I will do that with a mix of IKEA hacks, woodwork and furniture flips.
Design plan for the unfinished basement
The nerd inside me can’t resist drawing up the floor plan in 3D. After finishing a few build plans and designs with SketchUp Free, I am totally hooked.
This allowed me to visualize how the layout looks in scale and experiment with different ideas without spending a dime. Two of my favorite things haha.
Bathroom
The bathroom is a decent size. But much to our dismay, when the architect drew up the floor plan, we didn’t catch the important detail that the toilet was facing the bathroom door directly (insert giant face palm). It’s a big design flaw and a bad idea in terms of Feng Shui.
See what I mean? Imagine accidentally walking in on someone taking a dump.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. Anyway, it’d cost us at least $3000 to dig up the concrete floor and switch the drains for shower and toilet. Sigh, why didn’t we catch this sooner?
After considering our options, we decided to keep it as is. But the plan is to make the porcelain throne look pretty and turn it into a feature. Similar to this inspiration picture:
Via Style It Pretty
Looking straight into the toilet isn’t so bad, when the backdrop is beautiful.
Linen Closet | Dark Bathroom | Ceiling Light | Vanity | Marble Tile | Wall Sconces
Here is the moodboard I came up with. I’ve never been more invested in a bathroom renovation. Let’s turn this eye sore into a beautiful focal point, shall we?
Wet bar
Now let’s talk about something that’s actually light and cheerful, a wet bar! Studio McGee’s Sunset House basement is a major inspiration for me. I took the white oak cabinet and floating shelves combo and am hoping to recreate the high-end look with my old friend–IKEA kitchen cabinets.
Using IKEA SEKTION cabinets and VEDHAMN drawer front (white oak veneer), all the cabinets come to around $6000. Not bad for an ten-feet-wide white oak kitchenette with tall wall cabinets extending all the way to the ceiling. Note that this includes the sink, faucet and mini fridge (priced at $699). I will source remnant quartz as countertop and DIY faux marble backsplash to help lower the cost.
Oak Cabinet Doors | Floating Shelves | Brass Knobs | Brass Cup Pull
Now I just need to wait for IKEA’s annual sales to get a 10% off. More savings, the merrier.
Home theater
We are not fancy people. But the idea of having a cozy, dark room to cuddle up on movie night sounds amazing. The west side of the basement, which has no windows, is perfect to be used as a home theater.
Via Stefana Silber
My vision is to keep the area dark and moody with floating black cabinets underneath the projector screen. My husband picked out this affordable sound system from Amazon. It will hopefully give us the high-end sound quality, without the prohibitive cost that some products have.
There is a bump out area measuring about 13 feet by 3 feet right next to the media center. This corner is a big unknow right now. It can be a storage room, an additional seating area, or a bunk room?
If you have any any good ideas, let me know!
Home gym or flex space
One thing we loved about the basement was all the empty space. The east side of the lower level gets a lot of natural light. The kids rode their bikes, tumbled on the gym mats, did ballet class (with a DIY PVC barre), jumped on the bouncy house, watched movie with friends, and did many other things. It was so much fun!
Even though we are creating more defined zones now, I want to keep some play areas for the kids. We won’t be putting a lot of gym equipment there. Nor will there be a ping pong table.
This gives us more flexibility for games, parties and sports.
Home office / man cave
This is still a work in progress. The goal is to keep my client (aka dear husband) happy. And double this up as a guest bedroom. More details to come.
How much do we budget for this unfinished basement?
Honestly, anything less than 100K would be a win for us.
When we built the house, 100K was the magic number we heard a lot for finishing the basement. With the insane inflation post pandemic, we always thought finishing the basement would take years to save up for.
After talking to a few contractors this fall, we got quotes from 30k to 70k. I know, it’s a wide range. And still some pretty big numbers. But it’s a lot more reasonable than what we initially thought. Since I was able to persuade them to let my husband and I DIY part of the project, I’m hoping the total cost won’t be extranomical.
I will share the full cost breakdown at the end of the project.
What do you think of this design plan? Make sure to follow along to see the progress!
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