We just finished the layout stage of our basement renovation. Our basement is almost exact the same size as yours so I'm very interested in seeing your progress! We chewed on plans and ideas for more than a year. We only came up with a layout we both feel good with once we finally figured out what we really want to use the basement for and what should be possible in the future. Our house is one bedroom short for our family so we really need a bedroom or sleeping area in the basement. Our house only has one bathroom (one toilet) for 5 people so we need an extra bathroom too. We have an exit to the garden in the basement so we wanted to have some kind of mudroom, laundry and mechanical room needed to stay downstairs too. First we thought of making a bedroom for or oldest son. But the square footage we have to work with is not big and making a bedroom, bathroom, mudroom and mechanical room would divide the space in a lot of little rooms and a hallway which takes in space as well. Furthermore, in this area basements are typically used for recreational functions. So we fear the resale value of our house might decrease with no obvious recreational space down there. We decided to turn the basement into an open concept bedroom/office for ourselves and have the bathroom for ourselves too. This way the basement will be our own little studio, the kids will each have a bedroom and one bathroom upstairs. When the time comes that our kids move out, we can simply take our bed out of the basement and replace it with a couch or two to turn it into a recreation room. I hope this can help in some way! Maybe you too can combine the functions of the rooms you want, like: bathroom/laundry or recreation room/guestroom ? This is roughly the new layout of our basement, the dimensions of stairs and doors are a bit off but you'll get the idea :)

It sounds like you've been watching the "home improvement" television programs. They don't actually exist to help you improve your home. Their sole purpose is to move money from your pockets to those of the programs' producers and sponsors. And in this case, a LOT of it is going to move, quite a bit more than you will ever get back when you sell. On the other hand, if you're more well off than HGTV and Sherwin-Williams, you probably don't have anything to worry about. :)

It’s in the basement so we have led lights for all the high hats but natural light we won’t have besides two small windows. That is why we went light for the walls so it’s not a dark dungeon. We do like vinyl but is costly as the square footage is a lot. That is why we are leaning towards carpet. We just don’t know if we should do a pattern or keep it simple

Love it! We did the same thing but opened up down to the tread, so the balusters go into the tread which is open on the end. So much better opened up!