Finishing a Basement: Any Extras I should add now?

[dmclone]

Take a picture of all the wires before the drywall goes in.

HDMI cables to wherever you think you may put a TV or something where you can easily fish through wire.

I just put one cat 5 connection to my home theater stuff and then bought a cheap dummy 10 port switch.

Lighting along the stairs would really have been nice to have. Last weekend in KC I picked up some motion sensor lights for $5/each and put them on every third step. A little ghetto but with a home theater it helps a lot for people heading up the stairs.

I keep all my home theater gear on a rack in a separate part of the basement that's unfinished. All my lights can be controlled by remote.

 

[DeereClone]

Egress windows wherever you can. Add light to basement and value if you can count rooms in basement as official bedrooms with the window.

 

[buf87]

Can't stress making sure ground water is taken care of. Our drain froze & plugged and flooded part of our carpeted basement. Mildew and wet carpet are a *****

 

['Clones Fan]

I keep all my home theater gear on a rack in a separate part of the basement that's unfinished. All my lights can be controlled by remote.

So do you have a repeater or something to control everything? I like this idea as I am very opposed to clutter, especially opposed to cords being unorganized behind the receiver/DVD player etc.

 

[JY07]

I wouldn't worry too much about getting cabling everywhere: like someone else mentioned, just about everything now is wireless capable for internet, and TV providers are doing more with having their boxes work wirelessly as well.

If you do install cabling like HDMI, just keep in mind that there are different versions with different capabilities, so whatever you install now might need to be replaced in a few years depending on your needs. It won't do you any good to have a super expensive AV receiver and ultra high-def TV when the HDMI cables between them can't support that quality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#Version_comparison

 

[isulive2train]

Food cellar. Add cobwebs for effect.

 

[dmclone]

I went with a Lutron light switch and a Russound connector block

You can see that I'm using 3 emitters. Directv, AV receiver, and another one that I can't remember. I don't need one for the PS3 because it uses bluetooth or whatever to communicate.

Keep in mind that this was done 6 or so years ago so models numbers have probably changed.

 

[dmclone]

Unlike others, I would worry about cabling. Trying to get a strong wi-fi connection in the basement can sometimes be a challenge and a wired connection is always better than a wireless connection. Do it right or you'll be kicking yourself later.

As far a speaker cable. I wired for 7.1 in case I ever wanted to upgrade from 5.1. I never have but I'm happy I spent the extra $5 to have it in the ceiling.

 

[cyinne]

If I were doing a basement/home entertainment/man cave I would love to put in one of these. Multiple screen tv- have each individual screen be a different channel, have a group of 4 be one channel and the other 5 screens be individual channels, or have one big screen.

Or an HD projector screen. Where I work they have both the multi screen tv and the hd projector. Both are really great to watch sporting events on.

 

[huntt26]

Unlike others, I would worry about cabling. Trying to get a strong wi-fi connection in the basement can sometimes be a challenge and a wired connection is always better than a wireless connection. Do it right or you'll be kicking yourself later.

As far a speaker cable. I wired for 7.1 in case I ever wanted to upgrade from 5.1. I never have but I'm happy I spent the extra $5 to have it in the ceiling.

Exactly. Mine is wired for 7.1 and I'm actually looking forward to the day that my 5.1 receiver goes out! Not really, but you know what I mean

I also second an earlier post about dimmer switches, especially if you have different "areas" of your basement in the same room. For example, I have recessed lights on dimmers in the bar area, TV area and pub table area. I really like being able to dim the lights down over the TV area, brighten the bar to the max, and have the pub table in the medium lighting. Adds a nice atmosphere.

 

[coolerifyoudid]

Take a picture of all the wires before the drywall goes in.

HDMI cables to wherever you think you may put a TV or something where you can easily fish through wire.

I just put one cat 5 connection to my home theater stuff and then bought a cheap dummy 10 port switch.

Lighting along the stairs would really have been nice to have. Last weekend in KC I picked up some motion sensor lights for $5/each and put them on every third step. A little ghetto but with a home theater it helps a lot for people heading up the stairs.

I keep all my home theater gear on a rack in a separate part of the basement that's unfinished. All my lights can be controlled by remote.

I always tell myself to do this but forget every damn time

 

[stateofmind]

I just went back to review things I bought from Amazon for my basement:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0028JJLSS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Not sure where I bought the wire to run under the tile in the bathroom but I LOVED this set up. We had a daylight basement, so maybe it's colder than the egress set up that others are talking about. My walkout is even colder, so I think that should be what would determine this in the future. I sure miss it in my new home. We had a large bathroom and it cost me around $150 to do it all including this thermostat. Menards, Home Depot, etc would've cost me $300+

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009EA7ZUK/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001OS8YMI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I spent around $500 on cabling everything, overkill, but I knew I wouldn't get another chance.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008B7ARRK/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0069A6UNQ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I fed my TV feed out to my bar and my workout room with this handy little thing. Along with my 2-zone home theater this worked great.

I second the sump stuff. My home was dry as a bone for 7 years, the week after we moved out and the weekend before we had final walk-through, we had the torrential rains and the power cord got under the sump float and caused it to overheat. It needed to be unplugged to reset. Needless to say we found our full basement soaked from corner to corner. Had to replace all carpet and doors the weekend of the Iowa/ISU football game. Safety steps here are of major importance. Make sure you buy sump insurance unless you want to pay for the damage, which I did.

I had a separate panel installed in basement for all of the circuits. This was AWESOME when I was trying to run 3 fans, 2 shop vacs, 2 dehumidifiers all at the same time...

http://www.amazon.com/Auralex-RC8-R...2041655&sr=8-1&keywords=drywall+sound+channel
I had my drywall hung on these and put fiberglass between the floors and it worked well except for the sub-woofer. Not sure what else I could've done, and not sure I'd spend the money on it if I had to do it again.

After moving into this house we installed a water softener and reverse osmosis. If you are a water snob like we are, get the tubing running to your upstairs sink and fridge ahead of time.

 

[BeachAve]

Anything that you missed? Or anything you did that was well worth it?

Thanks.

* before the drywall goes in, walk through the basement several times--and determine where you want LIGHT SWITCHES before everything is wired. Also don't skimp on lights, unless you have a walkout with a l lot of natural light

* We have built-in speakers/surround-sound, hard-wired in ceiling(s), and connections behind our TV.

** land-line and/or security system? Now is the time. We had a non-union small electrical Co install all of our low/voltage wiring in our basement--at once> speaker/stereo wiring; land line; lighting

**Wet bar? The main pipe sometimes in the middle of the space. If water access next to a column/pillar, then you can frame around everything and drywall around everything

 

[ILiftWithRoyce]

As I said above, I am finishing my basement. Basically, I am the general contractor and am hiring everything out.

Any extras that I should do now that I will never have another chance at?

I am running gas for an outdoor firepit and to the garage.

Plenty of cable outlets and power outlets.

Anything that you missed? Or anything you did that was well worth it?

Thanks.

Bar

 

[RubyClone]

Unlike others, I would worry about cabling. Trying to get a strong wi-fi connection in the basement can sometimes be a challenge and a wired connection is always better than a wireless connection. Do it right or you'll be kicking yourself later.

As far a speaker cable. I wired for 7.1 in case I ever wanted to upgrade from 5.1. I never have but I'm happy I spent the extra $5 to have it in the ceiling.

This...

Wired will always win out. I just upgraded my DirecTV hand we went from wireless to wired (glad I had that extra CAT5). I also have an older home and my wireless setup is on the other side of the house from the entertainment room, and across several block foundation walls which really cut into the effectiveness of the wireless. Much happier now I got that hardwired and it's way faster for video downloads.

And as mentioned - resale. I don't have a land line - next owner may want it.

 

[Clonehomer]

For audio/video, install conduit with pull cables. Running HDMI or Cat6 cables sounds really good now, but technology changes so it'd be really nice to be able to replace what's there without ripping a part the wall.

 

[VeloClone]

You should probably get a Lazy Drinker. It is a home grown product engineered right there in Ames.

http://daydreamerjimbo.wix.com/lazydrinker

 

[blizzisu]

Flexible conduit for cabling is a must and future proofs you for new technologies.

In floor heating underneath solid surface floors isn't a must but is really nice to have if you can afford it.

Also consider a "false wall" if you are going with a projector and screen. I have a projection setup and I had square footage to spare, so I built my projection screen wall out about 30 inches from the foundation wall. This allowed me to hide my speakers and subwoofers behind an accoustically transparent screen.

 

[ILikeTurtles]

Make sure the eye bolts for the chains are actually anchored directly to the concrete foundation walls and floor. Apparently they can get ripped out with enough effort if they're just screwed into the drywall...

 

[NickTheGreat]

So do you have a repeater or something to control everything? I like this idea as I am very opposed to clutter, especially opposed to cords being unorganized behind the receiver/DVD player etc.

That's what a lot of guys do. I have a Logitech Ultimate Remote which uses RF to communicate between the remote, and a hub, which has some IR blasters. Works great, albeit a little pricey :yes: