Basement Work

We are creating a second family room in our basement, hoping to create a space where our teenage kids can hang out with their friends. Here is am image of the plan...


The square area is about 16' x 16', which will give plenty of room for the kids.


Here is the new entry to the kids bedrooms and bath. As shown in an earlier post, this takes away the need for the long, dark hallway. The doorway is thick, since this wall holds the main house drain and central vacuum system.


The built-in bookshelves will go into this hole (82" high x 92" wide). The sheetrock around the inside perimeter of the opening is only there to deaden sound coming from inside the wall. I will hopefully be building the bookshelves this weekend.

Walk-in Closet #1

As part of remodeling our basement, I am adding a walk-in closet to my daughter's bedroom and a large storage closet to our bonus room.

While our house is relatively large (3600 sf), there is minimal storage. Since our basement bonus room is about 1300 sf of open space (in the shape of an L), taking 4 feet of the end of it is hardly noticed.

Here is the plan (orange walls are new)

This closet is basically 4" x 8", which I think is about the minimum you would want for a walk-in. You could argue its too small, but it provides 8 continuous feet of closet space, plus takes most of the area in front of the closet (the clearance space you need for standing) out of the room. This actually increases the footprint of the bedroom quite a bit.

We are moving my daughter's old closet to our boys' room. These are closets have just a four foot opening, and they need space as well.

Here is a diagram of the design we came up with. This eneded up being a combination of daughter, DW and me all putting our ideas in the mix. There will also be some shelving along the back wall, not shown here.


After looking at the prices, quality and options for closet organizers, I decided to build it myself (for more on cabinet building, click here). We are using 5/8" laminated pine boards from Home Depot. I'll add pictures in a few days. I figure I can cut the cost in about half, and make exactly what we want.

Most closet organizer sites want to sell you a unit and are not focused on helping you with building and designing you own. After searching a while, I did find a good resource: Designing a closet organizer by Ace Hardware. It provides typical dimensions (I inserted the table below), plus overall installation techniques.

Five men's suit coats	12" wide, 38" long
Six men's shirts (on hangers)	12" wide, 38" long
Man's shirt (folded)	8" wide, 14" long
Man's pants (on straight hangers)	44" long
Man's pants (folded on hangers)	27" long
Man's dress hat	6" x 11"
Man's shoes	9" wide, 12" long
Woman's dress	68" long
Woman's robe	52" long
Woman's dress	50" long
Woman's jacket	36" long
Woman's blouse (on hanger)	34" long
Woman's blouse (folded)	10" wide, 13" long
Woman's skirt	36" long
Woman's shoes	6" wide, 9-1/2" long
Sweater (folded)	10" wide, 14" long
Boots	9" wide, 12" deep, 14" high