Does it look good? It depends on the proportions and the window size and placement. Narrow high-ceilinged rooms with typical basement sliders at the very top can make you feel like you've fallen down a well. On the other hand, a double glass door or larger walkout to a below-grade patio can open up the space to the outside in an inviting way.

We have a walk out basement with a bunch of windows and two doors - one to the finished area and a double door to my workshop in an unfinished area. You might want to consider that second door if you are going to be storing stuff down there in the winter. I have security concerns about all teh doors and windoes down there too, but I feel like if someone really wants to get in - they'll get in regardless. The two issues I have are - what the finished basement means to the design of the deck and patio outside. In our case we need both and they need to work together. Second issue, and this might be specific to my build, is how the concrete footers are insulated where they are above grade. In our home the footers under the back wall continue above grade by about one course of block - maybe 6 inches. That block is 5.5" thick. On top of the block sits the 2x6 stud wall. So, with the wall and the block being the same thickness, the exterior siding (hardy) and the interior finish (drywall) can run right down the stud wall and perfectly cover the block. Here's the problem - The 2x6 wall is insulated, but there was no interior space to insulate that concrete block. We have radiant heat in the basement floor and we lose a lot of heat through that 6" by 50ft length of wall that is uninsulated. I can tell because the snow melts in that area of the yard before it melts anywhere else. On the interior, all it has is sheet rock and mdf base molding covering the block. The solution (I think) would have been for the wall to have been thicker than the block so that there would have been interior space to put rigid insulation against the block before the sheetrock and moldings were put on. Good luck

I went back and forth with deciding on a walk out or not. I think the same way you do, I don't really like the look of a two story home on the backside. That being said, I really wanted big daylight windows in the basement. We went with large windows, but no walk out. We would have had to bring the grade up a bit more for a walk out and as it is, we will have to put in two retaining walls. I am not sure how much more expensive it was with the large windows, but I am sure it was more than smaller windows and the extra expense of the excavation. I thought about what we would be walking out to and that is a woodsy area on our 7 acres. It is nothing special and since most of our living space on the property is on the other side, it didn't seem to make sense to put the walk out in. We do have the large, two story look on the back side, but we have made that look shorter by siding choices. We put a cedar shake on the top section, then followed with straight siding. You can see photos of it here. Good luck with your decision. It is one of many you will be going through. Here is a link that might be useful: My house building blog

There is a new vinyl out now that looks like wood. I think it's sold in strips. Someone over in the Home Decorating forum said they bought it at a big box store (HD or L's) and it looks very nice! Very nice indeed! A great compromise for this kind of application. We put vinyl tiles down in our walkout basement when our kids were younger than yours, and it's still holding up just fine. (One is about to graduate from college now) Believe me, it has taken years of use and abuse. We put a large (inexpensive) area rug down in the family room/TV area to give it a warmer feel and when the kids wanted to play board games on the floor... but the rest is just the open tile. Easy to keep clean too. We did use wall-to-wall carpeting in the guest room down there and it's been replaced once and is about to be replaced again. It does have a "warmer" feel but it doesn't hold up in the long haul as well as the vinyl. My 2 cents - good luck!