Basement Finish Project 1: Planning

We finally got the wild hair to finish our basement, at least partially. After toying with the design for a couple of months now, we have come up with something along the lines of a bedroom/bath guest suite, some storage (definitely not enough) coupled with a small workshop, home theater or tv room, game room, powder room, and a wet bar. At the point of writing this, the design has been through 11 iterations. Better to plan (its free!) than put something in that you don’t like. I am sure it will change again.

Our main goal in this portion of the project is to finish the guest suite, storage/formal workshop and the tv room. The powder room, game room and wet bar will have to wait. Our basement is nearly 1200 square feet so there is a lot of space to work with. The basement is also a walk-out so access to the space is great and there is an abundance of natural light.

I had used software products for home project planning and design by Punch in previous projects including a massive landscaping effort so I felt comfortable using it again. I decided to purchase the “mother-load” product offered by Punch called Architectural Series 3000 because I had frequently felt that some of the lesser expensive packages were missing the tools to do real design. After using this for awhile, I am still feeling the same way. It is just a little rough around the edges but will have to do. Some nice tools included in the package help with decent framing, electrical, plumbing and HVAC.