We have finally arrived at the planning stage of remodeling your basement. By now you have should have a basic idea on how much room you will have to work with and a general idea of what you wish to accomplish with your space. You also should have solved any water,mold,and radon issues before going any farther. Now lets talk about where you can go from here.
There are many options for your basement space from a new media room to a rental apartment. This will all depend on your desires and the funds you have to work with. For the purposes of our article we will go with a apartment style layout to cover all installations from the kitchen to the bathroom.
Hopefully your water heater,electrical panel, and furnace are all located closely enough to be separated into one separate room. If so then you are one lucky homeowner. For the rest of us with major separations between all of our “utilities” we need to plan for access and ways to hide them from the start. Generally speaking most people will design a layout that allows them to put each of these in a closet in their addition. Make sure when laying out your closet you have enough room to get to anything you may need to access at any point down the line.