Basement Decorating Ideas - All manors of Basement Finishing

After starting a thread on the Pioneer Basement forums: Basement Decorating I went back through my files of emails to go through some messages from readers and from clients about attempting to decorate their basements.

People all over the world, and especially in urban areas like Boston, New York, and London have sent me questions about how to best decorate their basements. My first question:What do you want to do in your basement?After a moisture control system is installed, the possibilities are endless!

Home Basement Finishing has a great basement idea photo gallery to get the juices flowing.

My design ideas for a basement always tend to lean towards lighter, brighter, more reflective colors. This helps to bounce light further into the basement and thus, making it less bleak and dark. The main idea is to pick a color that you want to design around. (My family for instance really loves greens...I'm sure you'd find another color that you love).

Support piers can be covered up with a variety of different options. I decided to cover mine in a wood finish. I kept the column covers "square" to match the basic furniture patterns in the rest of the basement (no sense in having a Round object interrupt the sea of straight lines). If you're into more modern, round, or elliptical furniture and headboards then you might consider dressing yours up with a more traditional round lolly column cover. But like I said, your imagination is the only thing holding you back.

Copepods and Rotifers: West Hartford, CT Residents asked to Boil Water

Hartford Courant Story: MDC asks CT residents to boil water after contaminants are found

Needless to say: I'm going to bringing home bottled water for my mother this weekend. Read more about the details in the Hartford Courant Story link above.

"While they are not a threat to public health, their presence indicates a problem with the water treatment system, according to a statement from the Department of Public Health."

AP Article: Drug companies releasing drugs into drinking water

AP IMPACT: Tons of released drugs taint US water
another reason to pay attention to the EPA under their categories of "water"

One of today’s EPA tips: Appliance/Machine Maintenance

“Today's environmental tip: Proper maintenance reduces waste! Keep your appliances in good working order and follow the manufacturer's suggestions for operation and maintenance. Shop for products with high consumer satisfaction and fewer breakdowns. If kept in good working order, your appliances should last a long time and not end up as waste before their time.”

You can receive these EPA short updates by subscribing to their rss feed. I subscribed in order to keep a better handle on the issues in the community around Westport and also to keep a close ear to the ground regarding topics about ground water.

Today’s tip was remarkably relevant. On Pioneer’s Forums I’ve remarked numerous times that doing sump pump maintenance will save your money in the long run. I urged people to pick a time when their pump’s not running much, like the dead of winter, but more importantly before the spring.

I’m busy, as is anyone who’s working in today’s society, so it’s easy to get behind on maintenance for anything (I myself will own up to the fact that I’m over 5k miles on my next oil change…which I need to put on my calendar). But like with all maintenance it’s important to do.

Maintaining your sump pump or dehumidifier regularly (once a year) will increase the life span of the machine. It won’t make your machine immortal, but it’ll help keep it running smoothly and costing you less than a pump that goes without maintenance and breaks down often.

Comment:
What would make it easier for you to remember to do a yearly maintenance?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. I’ll share mine in the comments.

Friend's Online Basement Inspection - My reaction, part2

Here are the rest of the images from the foreclosed home in NJ that my friend was looking at.

From the pictures I was able to draft up a "rough" (aka, not anywhere close to scale) of the the basement floor plan:

Because of the wood floor, my initial reaction was that that area was an addition with no concrete slab poured. I came to this conclusion A.) With the wood floor, b.) the akward end to the interior concrete block wall (see oil tank shot), and C.) from the mold appearing to discolor the wood floor.

All the images above can been enlarged by clicking on them.

I sent a reply email too him with the following information:

img_4577: Slight efflorencense left on walls
img_4578 - Furnece vent/chimney ash box - def' water damage, all that white power on the floor is evedence of direct water contact and evaporation.
img_4580- Pull that rug out ASAP!, the color changes in the image should be a red flag
Img_4584-4586: Mold coloring to wooden floors. Tear down walls and flooring. This basement has had water damage.

Telling by the akward paint job of only the first 2-3 feet of the walls, that tells me they a.) tried to dry lock only the areas that might have "been the problem" or b.) they're trying to cover up past water damage spots on the walls (see same color change in the Weight Room on all the finished walls). I wouldn't be surprised if that wood floor covered up and area of just soil. It seems to be an "addition" area because of how the wall suddenly ends at the start of the doorway.

1.) Past water damange
2.) Oil line from oil tank to furnace needs to be upgraded to above floor flex pipe with oil pump at tank. This line should also be insulated. This is a code issue.
3.) Remove any an all organic material: Rugs, wood, wood walls.

Demo might range anywhere from $400-$2000 depending on square footage.
Updating the fuel line should fall in the $300-$400 range
Depending on the linear footage of the basement properly waterproofing it could range from $6,000-$10,000

My Friend's Reply:

Yeah we have looked at everything. the main bathroom needs all the titles in the shower/tub wall replaced. and the roof is slate, looks good from what we can see in the attic, we had heavy rain the past few days and we went back to look at it today. it handled the rain well and there might be some leaking in the roof, but it didn't look horrible. kitchen is new.

the problem is that if we can't take a second mortgage then we will have no money to fix the place up, but we might try and negotiate with the bank and have them pick up the cost of fixing it and we'll tack that on to our asking price.

We discovered that this was an addition that they made to the house THROUGH the main wall of the house, so you were right that its probably dirt underneath the plywood floor.

Related Reading and Links

Read about the Top 6 Basement Mistakes that contractors and homeowners make.

Ask Jacob A question Directly on Pioneer Basement's Help Forums!