If you’ve got teens, especialy a teen son who wants to spread his wings just a little, you might consider letting him move into the basement. I won’t get into why my son wants to move into the basement, but my husband and I have agreed that it is the right thing and now we are in the planning phases of getting him relocated.
For a teen to move into the basement, the basement has to be pretty much finished already. You don’t want to do major construction. Asumming your basement is basically finished with drywall, heat, and air condition, here are the steps that need to be taken.
Determine which room or what are to use. Our current basement has a family room, a gym, a home theater, a storage room and a craft room. We don’t use any of these rooms so they are all available for consideration. We eliminated rooms with no windows as this is just not safe. We eliminated the room that was too small, plus had the heater in the corner aslo. This left the craft room and the great room. He didn’t want his room to be out in the open, so this leaves the craft room.
The craft room has it’s own challenges. It is beneath the kitchen and has a sink. It also has a double wide door opening and no door. The other problem it that it is as far away from the bathroom that you can get. It is essentially a kitchen shell, but it is the best place for bedroom conversion.
To convert this room we need to conceal the sink, give him a closet, and provide a door. The closet will be easy. I just need to purchase a couple of low cost wardrobe cabinets to hold his clothes. One will have shelves and one a hanging pole. To conceal the sink (instead of removing it) we will take the back off off of a third cabinet and slide it around the sink. This way he can still access the sink, to brush his teeth and wash his face, by opening the closet doors. The sink can be concealed from his friends by the cabinet. Three cabinets will only cost about $300.00.
Our plan is to put a sliding (loft type) door on a track for the room. Until we find the right door, however, a curtain rod with thick drapes will do.
While your set of challenges in coverting the basement into a teen suite, may be different, you can see how to choose a room by using process of elimination, then determining problems with the room and being creative in tackling those issues.
If you liked this you should also read my blogs at the home blog, the parents blog, and the frugal blog. You can read my recent posts here.
Also read:
2009 Tax Credits for Home Improvement
Increase Your Kitchen’s Value for Under $100!