Finished Basement Walkout - Worth it or Not?
Ellie RK
7 years ago
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Ellie RK
7 years agoRelated Discussions
Finishing walkout basement.
Comments (1)Sure, but you will want to complete your electricity first including both recepticals and switches for lights in the ceiling. And, if you plan to drywall the ceiling, then install the ceiling drywall before the walls. Makes for better corners....See MoreFor those with walkouts, how'd you finish the basement level exterior?
Comments (17)We did 3 sides brick and the rear hardi siding. Probably blasphemy in some circles. There is a bit of brick wrapped a few feet where the concrete wrapped. Saved $30k. There are so many windows on the back wall, the siding doesn't look bad. And then a deck and screened porch break things up. Not 5 people have actually walked around the house and would care about the transition. The back yard is almost uniformly accessed from the inside of the house. Where there is a walkway, there is vegetation to completely break up the transition - Like you walk 50 feet and see a wall of bushes - so there is no awkward visual transition even for the 10% of people who might notice. Honestly - our next house may be brick front only which my better half has always loathed but appropriately landscaped so you don't notice is a lot cheaper than brick. We currently have this enormous brick side wall that was kind of a waste. It is 10 feet from the lot line just like our neighbors - there is no path there. The A/C contractors get to see it. There are several large trees blocking the view from the road....See MoreWalkout Basement, Worth it?
Comments (0)I have a basement they currently has a rec room, den, full bathroom, lundary and utility room. I want to convert it into a rental with a walkout basement but not sure of the cost and if it's even worth it. Plan: Add cement flooring and a door without digging deeper, doing this under the main floor deck. Any advice on average pricing and thoughts would be nice....See MoreFinished walk-out basement or over garage bonus - new build
Comments (17)nidnay - at our current facility we have an 8 stall barn with a bathroom, 12' X 18' office, and 12' X 24' tackroom, with the barn being about 125' away from the back of our house (facing it actually). I've lived here for 18 years now and we RARELY EVER use the stalls, so we don't plan on building a 'stable' (or a barn with stalls). The horses are going to live out with shelters in each pasture. Our current barn had to have it's own it's own septic system. $$$ The current land we are looking at only had one perc site for 4 bedrooms. I don't want to pay for the test for a second perc ($250) plus the cost of having another septic system (about $4K), as well as creating a climate controlled office and bathroom in the barn (a mini split system is about $3K and a 2 piece bathroom probably around $2K). That is about $10K right there in a separate septic, a 2 piece bathroom, and office and climate control for both (as well as permitting, creating plans, etc.). All things that would have already been in the house at the square footage we had to build. Plus grading for a large barn was going to be expensive. We found a place next to the house to put in a modest shed row 'barn' for a tack room, feed room and grooming, that will work with the topography of the land for minimal grading work. We did this to keep things cost effective. It's just my husband and I living in this house, it's not like we have kids to keep separated from my business. We're both fine with this situation. The door up the stairs to the main floor will have a lock on it. And I don't have a lesson mill program, I focus on quality not quantity. I've been teaching for over 20 years now. I keep about 8 weekly students at any given time. I get to know my students and my parents well... my students tend to stick around for years. Same for my boarders. We'll have 2 or 3 boarders at the new location. At our current facility 3 of our customers have been with us for 5+ years. At one point or another I end up paying most of my students and all of my boarders to house sit / dog sit / farm sit for us when we go on vacation. I'm pretty confident they are not going to bust the door down to access the main floor of my home. And they won't be there at inappropriate hours of the day / night anyhow. Vigil Carter - I guess you didn't read my last post. We priced out a 1 story 'ranch' with the same builder. 2200 sq ft was going to cost $209,000 THEN another $15K because of the sloped ground to add more courses to the crawl space foundation. This 1700 sq ft two story house, without walkout basement, came in at $178K pre-basement. The cost of the completely finished 840 sq ft basement, with a grand total heated sq ft of 2540, came to a total less than the single story 2200 sq ft ranch. Though we could have gotten a separate entrance in-law space, the in-law space would have been way smaller (by over 150 sq ft) and I would not have had an office that was separate from my main living space. I lift 50 pound bags of feed and hay nearly daily and my husband is military / infantry, we are active horse riders and hikers. I think we can handle interior stairs for another 12+ years. :) At that point if it starts to bother us then we can add a master suit to the side of the house (which we had already spec'd out anyhow but we just do not need at this time)....See MoreEllie RK
7 years agoEllie RK
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agoTroy Farwell
6 years ago
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