Do you have a basement?

[Gina]

In my part of SoCal, usually only really really old houses have basements. Some have crawl spaces, but for the most part, most houses have been built on concrete slabs.

There's nothing one can do about not having one, but I sort of envy those of you with them. Seems like a good place to keep hot water heaters, heaters, easy access to pipes and electrical, wine cellar, and a good storage area. Perhaps even extra living space - even a rental unit. I'm sure there must be downsides such as flooding, maybe critters, and in general keeping too much stuff.

If you have a basement, what do you do with yours?

[bae]

Our house is built into the side of a steep hill. The basement is a "daylight basement"' with windows on the downhill facing wall, and windows along the first third of the side walls on the downhill direction.

The folks who built the house clearly intended that space to be used as a caregiver's apartment as they aged. it has an external door and path to it, a kitchen, bedroom, dining room/living room space, its own wood stove, and laundry room. it also has several large room-sized closets containing most of the mechanical and electrical equipment for the house.

We currently use the dining room/living room for an office/music studio space, the kitchen space as a workshop/science lab/brewery/food storage (canning, freezing, smoking) prep area, the bedroom as a guest bedroom/tv room, the closets and storerooms for wine/food/supply storage. The cat is not allowed on this floor, so my daughter's smaller 4h projects also often end up living in my office there with me - rats, guinea pigs, and so on.

[Alan]

We built our house on a lot which provided an opportunity to have a walkout basement from the rear side. This also allowed us to have several large windows on that rear facing wall.

With about 2400 sq ft of space down there, over time we finished half the space as a large rec room with a small kitchen area, outfitted with the pool table, foosball table, gaming area for the grandkids, etc.
The remaining half was finished with two office/hobby rooms, a Jack&Jill bath between the offices, a utility room containing the furnace & water heater, a storage room and several additional closets.

[CathyA]

We only have a small basement that isn't real deep, and the rest of the area under the house is a crawl space. We use the basement for our water pressure tank, geothermal furnace, water softener, an extra fridge and shelves for junk. I would love a deeper, bigger basement so that we could store wine and veggies better, maybe have a work place for cutting wood, working on wood projects and hanging clothes to dry.
My MIL always had a huge basement. She would even sleep down there when it was really hot out (no a.c.) Big basements are great places for kids to play in, when the weather isn't good outside.
For us, the most important use of the basement is a place to hide in tornado weather!
Gina......you can add a basement to your house, but its pretty expensive. They just have to dig under the house.

Our washer and dryer are on the first floor. I would absolutely hate having those in the basement, like everyone used to in times past.

[Mrs-M]

We do. Ours is developed but DH wanted to change a few things, like build me a nicer laundry room, so he's been busy with that. Ours has a large rec room, my laundry room (almost completed), a small spare room (could be used as a bedroom), a bathroom, and a small storage type room (good for canning, etc). It's been a blessing to us as the little ones have all but taken over the downstairs and claimed it as being theirs! I say right on! :) Have at it.

[Gina]

Gina......you can add a basement to your house, but its pretty expensive. They just have to dig under the house.
That's not really possible when a house is built on concrete slab like most homes out here. When I was a kid there was a crawl space beneath our house that my dad dug out a bit for making wine, etc, but that was a completely different kind of home construction.

[Stella]

We have two basements built into a hill. The upper basement is a rec room and attached garage. The lower basement is a bedroom, dressing room and laundry facility.

[peggy]

Our basement is a walk out one as well, so it has several large windows, as well as smaller windows in each bedroom. There is also a sliding glass door to a large patio type area although we never use it. It was set up as an extra apartment or MIL thingy, but we don't use it as such. My husband has his music studio down there, which takes up probably a third of the space, plus the man-cave tv living room. There is an exercise area (doesn't get much use-LOL) There is a smallish kitchen, a really large bathroom (larger than my master bath upstairs-go figure!) and the mechanicals room. Also a dining room area but really part of the living room. There is also a wood stove there but we've never used it. It's not really a very good one but someday we plan to maybe put a pellet burner down there.

[peggy]

OH, and the best part of having a basement is when scary weather comes, and we get some here in the mid-west, we can go down there and feel somewhat protected.

[Simpler at Fifty]

We have a full basement. DH has his woodworking shop there and last year we built a sewing room for me. We had it tested for radon before we did anything permanent. It was positive so we have a vent pipe taking the radon out. We keep our canned (home canned) food there and use one corner for storage. Our furnace, water heater and water softener are down there also. We have a hook up for a sink and toilet any may do that someday too.

[razz]

Our basement is divided in half. 1/4 is our finished TV room, the rest of that half is DH's room for all his stuff like wiring, tools plus the electric furnace, water pump and filter. The other half is mostly finished which we use for everything - hanging laundry on fold-up racks to dry with wood stove heat, my serger and cutting table, the spare inflatable bed. The remaining part is for storage of canning and extra clothes, etc., the air exchanger and my water colour painting stuff.

The basement is cozy in winter with the airtight woodstove and lovely and cool in summer with the dehumidifier.

[rosarugosa]

We live in New England, and I think all the houses around here have basements, but we usually call them cellars, and that would be pronounced sellahs :) It is good to have a cellar because that is where you keep the furnace, hot water heater, washer, dryer, work bench, and litter boxes. You wouldn't really want any of those things in the living room. The downside is that it is also kind of a "stuff" purgatory, where you keep the stuff you don't want but can't quite part with. Luckily, it floods every few years, and it's easier to part with the purgatorial crap when it's all wet.

[Wildflower]

We have a half basement under our house, about 600 square feet. It houses our furnace, hot water heater, laundry area, and litter boxes for the cats. It's also a good storage area for many things, but the most important is for our safety during tornado season. In the midwest you really don't want to be without a basement....

[goldensmom]

We have a full, partially finished basement . It is open except for a small room for the furnace, water heater etc.. It has shelves for storage and areas for pantry overflow, a root cellar and a ‘storm’ corner with chairs, blankets and a battery powered television/radio where we go during tornadoes and tornado warnings. It has an outside entrance so I don't have to traipse through house with stuff from the garden. Best of all it’s where the litter box is kept.

[iris lily]

We have a basement, a typical old house basement with limestone walls and partial dirt floor and leaks. Until recently the main room with dirt floor was piled to the ceiling, and I am not exagerating, with "stuff" mainly DH's planks of wood scraps that he uses in his business. But he's been cleaning out his part, and I got rid of a couple of big things of mine, in anticipation of pouring a cement floor. Parts of the floor are cement (his shop, the floor that holds the washer/dryer and furnace) but the main room is dirt. Also we keep a freezer and refrigerator down there.

I imagine there is lots of radon down there and I'm certain we will die of something or other from that poisonous gas but whatever. It's hard for me to get excited about radon because it only became an issue about 25 years ago. And then mold is a more contemporary discovery of evil in a basement, and in the basement of my tiny spare house the mold hangs in strings, it's really quite extraordinary. Someone could use it as a set in a horror movie.

[CathyA]

We have a radon fan and a radon barrier in our crawl space/small basement. About 15 years ago, we had a reputable company come out and test it, and it was very high here. I think its high where there's alot of limestone. Who knows if it will help us live longer or not??
Remember Christopher Reeve's wife, who died of lung cancer? They said one of the possibilities was radon exposure.
Now if we can just keep the mice from chewing holes in all that radon barrier! I think one reason it became an issue was all the extremely tight houses that have been built in the past 40+ years. I know our house is extremely tight, unfortunately. We open our doors occasionally to get fresh air in winter. But maybe the tightness here is what made our radon numbers so high.
I think I'd almost be more concerted with mold. Oh, who knows.

[Glo]

Our basement is divided in half; one side is finished and DS3 lives there. The other side is laundry room, bathroom, storage room, and kitchen. We also have a "fruit cellar", which is a stand-alone cold room with shelves on four sides; we use it for canned goods, bulk items, etc. Its like a small grocery store in there and we could eat out of it for a couple of months at least.

[iris lily]

We have a radon fan and a radon barrier in our crawl space/small basement. About 15 years ago, we had a reputable company come out and test it, and it was very high here. I think its high where there's alot of limestone. Who knows if it will help us live longer or not??
Remember Christopher Reeve's wife, who died of lung cancer? They said one of the possibilities was radon exposure.
Now if we can just keep the mice from chewing holes in all that radon barrier! I think one reason it became an issue was all the extremely tight houses that have been built in the past 40+ years. I know our house is extremely tight, unfortunately. We open our doors occasionally to get fresh air in winter. But maybe the tightness here is what made our radon numbers so high.
I think I'd almost be more concerted with mold. Oh, who knows.

you are right, I should probably have more respect for the radon poisonous gas. Our house is tight as well. Even though it is not 'finished" and we live with no stairway banister etc etc the house is completely drywalled, insulated, and fit with new windows. The previous old Victorian windows and drafty walls of plaster.lathe upon brick would have taken care of the radon.

[jennipurrr]

I am envious of basements also. We have a crawspace so I suppose theoretically we could do some sort of basementish thing but it would definitely be too much of an undertaking for me. I have a friend who has the same floor plan house as ours, but has a daylight basement that is unfinished right now. It adds so much potential room to the house. I enjoy my house a lot but would love the option to expand living space should I need it with a basement.

[IshbelRobertson]

I have a cellar in my house. It has had various uses over the years we've lived there - everything from a play room for the children to a library to (nowadays) a wine cellar and store room.

[early morning]

We have a cellar as well. We need to re-tuck point the greyhead foundation- it's leaking very badly right now. But it will always leak somewhat. The washer, dryer, water-heater, electric service box, freezer, furnace, and drill press all live there, along with the paint, canning jars/supplies, off-season pots (huge turkey roaster, etc), and lots of misc. crap that should be carted to the dump but no one has the energy to lug them up the stairs... We have outside stairs/ access through covered flat doors, which is nice in the summer when headed for the clothes line, until the cats get in ;). I would be lost w/o a cellar.