Stephen Basement

"Rick was a great guy to work with.  A man with great integrity and was always open and honest with us about all the details, from cost to the best layout design.  We really appreciated his insights on placement of doors, shelves, etc.  He was considerate of our time and he did his best to let us know when he would be coming and leaving.  He's thorough and his work high quality.  We're very happy with it."
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> Stephen & Sherry

This is what the basement looked like when I first saw it.  We decided to frame from floor to ceiling, instead of putting a half-wall around the concrete, and insulate the entire wall for better insulation and a more desirable design. This is what it looked like when we were done:    

Stephen put in all the surround sound and theater equipment.  On the right in the picture above, and in the picture below, you see a cubby we created with a door underneath it.  This space was created just for his theater equipment to be out of the way and up where the little kids couldn't play with it, but it could receive remote signals. The shelves are angled to fit the 45 degree stairs to allow more space in the back for wiring of the theater system.  We also had electrical outlets and hookup connections installed within the cubby for the theater system.

 

The door underneath the cubby (above) is for an area that would have been wasted space. We decided to put a door in to allow access to under the stairs for storage. We installed a bolt lock on this door so that a knob would not stick out and injure someone as they walked past.

This (above) is what the storage room looked like when I first saw it.  Stephen wanted the storage room to be cold, so we blocked it off and put an exterior door on it to keep out the drafts to the main living area.  In the back room where the water heater is, there is also the furnace which receives cold air from the outside, so we put an exterior door on that room as well.

Below, the two doors with bolt locks are the exterior doors that are sealed with insulation and a threshold.  I recommend these types of doors to keep pests out of the storage and cold drafts out of the living area.  These particular doors were special-ordered, because they match the interior design Stephen and Sherry wanted.

 

In order to get the storage room as large as possible, we made the hallway narrow.  On the right you see an archway that leads underneath the stairs.  Sherry wanted this area as a playroom for their children, so it has a light and its own switch.  Later it can be used for storage. Below is the playroom.  At the top you see the stairs leading up to the main floor of the house.

Regarding the picture below, the shelf was going to be sheet-rock, but we decided to use wood for a shelf instead.  Sheetrock is much easier to do, because you don't have to worry about angles, but to do it right I cut each side of the boards at a different angle to get the corner angles to match up correctly and to get the shelf to hang over the Sheetrock evenly to put the trim on.  The shelf was offset by a two-toned paint job and will work well as a shelf, and it looks wonderful, and makes the whole stairwell!

 

 I also installed a bathroom, which is described in its own post as "Stephen Bathroom".