Ten years – My Basement Living Space to Guest Suite

Our basement has certainly come a long way from the stone walled storage area it was when I first moved in. We really lucked out as its almost unheard of that a 1915 farmhouse would have a basement under it with nearly ten foot ceilings. Back in that day basements were mostly just little cellars and most of them you couldn’t even access from the inside of the home. (My grandparents’ put in the interior stairwell in the ’50s.) I would love to go back and find out why the original builders dug it so deep and to also thank them!

I was a single gal on a single income when I started renovating this home. It was a big expense and a huge extra undertaking (that I did not need to do) but I decided, at the time, to put in a legal rental suite down here while I was already gutting and renovating the rest of the house.

I did the minimum as far as I could to save as much time and money as I could but that’s not at all what it ended up feeling like.

Just the minimum meant I still had to jackhammer out the floor to install a sub pump, bathroom, washer and drier hook ups and a kitchen. I also had to hire a crew to come in with rock saws to cut out the basement wall to install an egress window. And, of course, walls needed to be put up for wiring and insulation.

Not to mention all of the electrical needed to be run to support a full legal apartment.

At the time it really seemed like a common sense decision to give any future tenants their own separate service and panel etc…

But if I had known that to run a second service into this home was going to cost me an extra $60 a month (whether I used it or not) I probably would not have done it.

Fortunately that actually did turn into a smart decision on my part with or without renters!

The separate electrical panel I installed down here actually saved me quite a bit of money by not having to run all of the lines for this floor from upstairs. Not to mention, it saved me hours upon hours running those lines crawling, on my stomach, in the dirt, in a two foot tall crawl space!

The plumbing down here alone took me AT LEAST twice the time to run and complete than all of the rest of the house combined. Just my having to haul a million buckets of dirt out of here to make room for the drains and the subpump was WAY beyond what I anticipated.

Oh, and if I had realized anytime besides the end of the digging and the hauling that there was actually a very barely covered old well down here… I would have just dumped it all in there.

Honestly, if I had known how difficult it was going to be I don’t think I would have done it. I’m pretty sure I would have just run a couple of outlets and lights down here and given this space a thorough cleaning.

But I am still glad that I did even though I never used it as a rental.

Moving on to early 2021 and the craziness of Covid when all non essential employees hit the sidelines.

Lodi and I had only been together a few months at that point but we were living two hours a part in different states. The uncertainty of the times fast forwarded our future plans as it just made the most sense for him to move in with me right then.

He was non essential, had been waning to get out of the city for years and he had no idea when the company he was working for would even be allowed to open again.

So, he quit his job, moved his furniture and everything over and started looking for work around here for whenever the restrictions would finally lift.

Lodi isn’t good at doing nothing and I was just all kinds of jealous that he was stuck at home while I was an essential employee. (Could the world PLEASE lock me up next time so I can work on the house for six months?!)

We needed the garage back from his furniture and our basement (though filthy from its years as my wood workshop) was unfinished and empty.

He painted the ceilings, finished the floor with a Rustoleum garage floor kit, even gave the refrigerator a makeover and covered the walls in bead board. The whole thing felt like an underground speak easy so we ran with it with Edison bulbs and a fantastic Edison bulb chandelier in the center.

We love how it turned out.

And with Lodi’s recliner sofas and flat screen our basement became an awesome home theater…

THAT WE NEVER USE

Initially we did hang out down here from time to time but I feel like it was more because we felt obligated to after we spent so much time and money on it.

Four years later and the only reason I come down here now is to get something out of our extra freezer.

But, used or not, our basement wasn’t hurting anybody because we didn’t need it for anything…

UNTIL NOW

Lodi needed his own real office upstairs so he’s been valiantly making it work in our little guest bedroom.

Its not good.

Everything is in his way, none of the furniture is working for him because, obviously, we designed it entirely for guest sleeping accommodations. But we rarely have guests and a house needs to work first and foremost for the people that actually live there.

So pretty much everything in that room has to go.

But we still want guest sleeping so what on earth are we to do?

Oh right, we have a literal apartment in our basement with a full kitchen, bathroom, total privacy and even a separate entrance!

So, that’s the future plan for down here and almost all we have to do to accomplish that is to just rearrange or purge some furniture.

Everything in the guest bedroom has to go and then, with it now empty, the largest of the sofas down here will fit perfect in there along with the coffee table.

I’m crossing my fingers that we can keep the smaller of the two sofas here and it not feel cramped but, if we can’t, it will just become our garage couch.

That happily leaves us with just about the only furniture we need for a guest suite already down here. The two end tables will be great for either side of the bed and with both of the lamps.

(Lodi actually professed to me that he hates his little “dresser” that’s down here so that’ll go too.)

I plan to position the bed basically in the center of the room, opposite the bathroom and TV, so you can lay in bed and watch TV just like in any hotel room.

It will be lovely for any guests we have but I’m doing most of this for entirely selfish reasons.

We have a decent amount of storage space in the house but a lot of it is really inconvenient to get at so I’m stupidly excited to build the bed frame tall enough to accommodate storage bins beneath it.

No more dragging all of our holiday decorations out of our cramped closets in our attic!

This will also give us the excuse to get a new mattress so our current one can come down here so our guests will feel extra spoiled getting a king size bed but we’re really doing this to get a new bed for ourselves!

We covered up the window because we’re lazy, we’re not renting this space so we we legally don’t need it and it doesn’t let in any natural light anyway as its under a trap door in our deck.

But I spent a TON of time and money putting that window in so I want to cut it back out.

And I think if I put up a blind or curtains over it I can add some warm lights behind them and make it feel like its actually lit up by daylight…

I’m encouraging Lodi to consider taking his guitars and sound equipment out of here too. With our current guest bedroom becoming his space I think it makes sense for it to be his music room. I also think his guitars coming upstairs will mean he’ll also play a lot more which I would love.

We like our speak easy idea but we’re definitely gonna tone it down a notch.

All the Edison bulbs and the chandelier are staying but most of the decorations and prints on the walls down here are really just a mash up of stuff Lodi and I already had and we’re not married to any of it.

I’m excited to take it all down and get a fresh look at our basement as our new guest suite!

Also, because its me, I’m super excited about a headboard too, thinking one of the barn doors I saved from our barn might do the trick!