Creative Ways to Finish a Basement

Brick and Stone

• Using brick or stone for walls and floors can create a roomy and old-fashioned feeling in your basement. Because you will be building directly on the basement floor, you can afford to put more weight on it than if you were building upstairs. You can use real stone and brick, or reduce the amount of weight you have to move and use manufactured materials that look and feel like stone and brick but weigh much less and take up less room. Stone and brick are ideal for wall veneers, finished flooring, bars and decorative knee walls to separate areas of the basement.

Theme Rooms

• The basement is an area that is away from the greater formality of the living and dining rooms where you can allow yourself to be a bit more eccentric. Create a theme room to celebrate your hobby, favorite sports team or favorite kind of music. You can fill the room with memorabilia including posters, T-shirts, signed hockey sticks or framed records. Put in some comfortable furniture, a bookshelf for books about your chosen subject and a stereo to play your favorite music.

Murals

• If you are an artist, or have friends who are, take advantage of the available talent and paint murals on your basement walls. You can do this directly onto the walls by priming them first, but this may not be durable because of the temperature changes to which outside walls are subjected. Create more long-lasting murals by insulating the outside walls and building an interior stud wall finished on the inside with drywall. You can then paint the mural directly onto the drywall to give yourself a one-of-a-kind basement that is filled with art instead of old tools and bicycles.

Recycled Materials

• Explore the possibilities of reused materials in your basement. Save up recyclables for a few years and you will have piles of interesting materials. Build a decorative wall out of cat food cans. Paper another wall with flattened cereal boxes or magazine covers. Make a rug for the floor by stitching together worn-out clothing. Whenever you see a construction site or neighbors doing renovations, stop by and see what they might be getting rid of. You can save up a supply of reclaimed wood and use it for the structural aspects of your renovation, and save a lot of money in the process.