ProCraft's Remodeling Blog

Finished basements are really nice to have. Every parent has dreamed of a sound proof “play room” where the kids could be safely sequestered behind padlocked door until dinner time. A place where little Johnny and his sister Amy can rip each others hair out and the screams, shouts, and incessant crying won’t interrupt a moment of “Days of Our Lives” unfolding upstairs. Yes, basements can be a wonderful feature of any home.

 Of course, if you practiced tough love, Johnny and Amy could be rolling around in the dirt and dampness of an old farm cellar, locked away with the spiders, centipedes and that big, creepy furnace. Who would care? Get dirty kids, eat a few bugs, dinner in an hour.

But unlike the days of old, parenting doesn’t involve such drastic measures anymore. No, today it’s fluffy, plushy, cozy and dry. It’s painted murals of dancing vegetables on the walls and decent lighting for young eyes. It’s high tech games and gadgets with more computing power than were used to put men on the moon. It’s air hockey and Guitar Hero and movies on the big screen. If kids only knew what the old days were like!

So, what if you’re not the cool parents with the killer basement? I know, it’s tough to have a sleep-over on cold concrete. Amy and here friends just aren’t going to go for that. Instead, they’ll truck it on down to Sally’s house – her Mom’s so cool and they have a popcorn machine downstairs too! Wow, how does that make you feel. Like a parental loser, I bet. Damn Sally’s mom anyway. But, you can do something about it. Finish that wonderful space below your feet and become a hero to Amy. But, before you run in search of a coping saw and miter square, consider these three key basement design principles:

First, don’t finish the whole damn thing. You need to think in terms of finished space vs. unfinished space. Finishing every square inch of the lower level isn’t a great idea. Why? How about this – where are you going to store all your crap? Sure it sounds harsh, but you’ve got a ton of stuff that won’t look pretty stacked in the corner of the new theater room. Plus, do you really want your sons pals thumbing through your old yearbooks. The same yearbooks your stupid high school friends thought would be hilarious filling with nasty drawings. You get the point. Save space for storage.

Next, keep the design simple and clean. That means don’t wrap the walls and soffits around every obstruction like a latex glove. You don’t want to see box-outs and bump-outs and walls or soffits that change direction every two feet. You don’t see that upstairs, do you? A smart, well designed plan will work around structural obstacles and hide them without looking like they’re being hidden. That might mean you lose a few inches behind a wall or have an overhead soffit a bit wider than in needs to be, but the end result is worth a little lost space. Plus, the fewer corners, the less chance Johnny has to run into one while high on sugar.

Last, let there be light. The more, the better. Nothing gives a basement a bad name more than darkness. Most basements don’t have the advantage of natural light (the rat trapping window wells don’t really count). You’ve got to make up for that with a well designed lighting plan. A typical recessed lighting fixture with a flood bulb at about eight feet up will cast a circle of light on the floor of about eight feet. You need enough of them to cover the room with adequate “circles of light”. Hence “the plan”. With light, comes the need for control, as in dimmers. Sometimes, a dimly lit lower level is just what Bilbo and Frodo need to make the magic of the ring come to life. Well controlled illumination in just the right places. Now the party can begin.

That’s it for basements. But wait, I’ve been thinking. If little Johnny and Amy spent too much time locked in a dark, dank, bug infested cellar, they would probably grow up with some serious psychological issues. So maybe, despite the obvious attractiveness of the idea, you shouldn’t go there. Finish it fluffy. Besides, how could you ever face Sally’s Mom at a PTA meeting if you didn’t?

Mark Lewis,   ProCraft Contracting, Inc.

Can a failure to remodel actually cause psychological damage? Can it affect unborn children or lead to early senility? Can it alter our view of the world and of ourselves? Yes, deep questions. The type of questions that lead us to ponder the very origins of the universe. Questions that lead us on a journey, a journey feeble minds should not take, to a place where the very essence of unanswerable questions doth live – who came first, the chicken or the egg? But I stray from point at hand. Simply put, does that space in your home, that space you know should have been retired years ago, cause you harm?

Although I am pretty sure there haven’t been any Harvard studies on the subject, I think a case can be made. Let’s set the stage. Imagine you have a bath with a pink tub, blue wall tile, and a painted white vanity that has a missing door. Or it could be your kitchen with Formica counter tops that are delaminating and dark oak cabinets seen only in 1982 issues of Better Homes and Gardens. For both our sakes, let’s pray you are just imagining this. Now close your eyes (or for the unfortunate, open them) and picture yourself standing in one of these places.

On the most basic level, just being amongst these relics of bad design and by-gone misplaced taste creates a certain level of stress. Maybe you feel stress because your in-laws are visiting next week and they will brand you a loser. Or you feel stress because you promised your wife the kitchen would be done… six years ago. Or, it might just be that unidentified gnawing feeling in your gut that tells you there must be something better. Regardless of the source, stress can kill. And if it doesn’t kill, it can certainly cause bad diarrhea, or worse yet, gastro esophageal reflux disease. Ugly spaces cause stress – a fact, plain and simple. Stress is something you don’t need.

Take it up a notch. Those same ugly spaces play havoc with your self esteem. A stove and refrigerator placed side by side or a shower stall so small you’d be better off bathing in the kitchen sink are not merely billboards of bad design. They are assassins of self esteem, eating away at the very core of your self worth. In my humble opinion, ugly spaces might as well be radioactive – for they surely cause long term damage to your mental health. You wouldn’t keep nuclear waste in your silverware drawer, would you? Then why would you live with that gross bathroom?

Of course, we’re talking figuratively, not specifically about any particular room in your home. It could be a neighbor or a family member or a close friend’s bungalow. Regardless of where the injustice is taking place, you can now count yourself among the informed. Yes, you my friend are now up to speed on this little known, yet dangerous threat to the health of all Americans (and you thought french fries were bad). So, the next time you feel a little high strung, look around. It could be the ghost of 1982.

Mark Lewis

ProCraft Contracting, Inc.

I’m all for having a close relationship with my significant other. We spend a lot of time together. In fact, we’re together from morning till night. But, even thought we share almost everything, there are a few things we don’t. Toothbrushes come to mind. Underwear might be another. Oh, socks too – keep out of my sock drawer. We never share a sink or a toilet either. We are very fortunate to have more than one of each in our house, so I guess we have never faced a crisis requiring simultaneous use of one of those fixtures.

It seemed that sometime in the late 1960’s, or the 70’s, or for sure in the 80’s, builders decided to make vanities the length of football fields and throw in two sink bowls. Who birthed the idea of a bath vanity becoming the place where couples could spend quality time together? Or the idea that “modern” couples will have schedules so synchronized, that without two sink bowls, they would be spitting toothpaste on each other? What about those poor, lonely folks that don’t have a significant other? What was the second bowl to be used for in those cases? Maybe to plant a fern?

Well, the idea of the double sink hasn’t died in the twenty-first century. No, homeowners getting ready to remodel the bathroom cling to their two sinks like soap scum to tile. Why is this? Perhaps there is a fear of being caught with a mouthful of Listerine and nowhere to spit? Or the rationalization that everyone wants two sinks, and if I take one out, my house will be worthless? If that were the case, couldn’t a stronger argument be made for side by side toilets? I can personally say that racing for an available toilet has happened way more times than any conflicts over sink availability. And believe me, that’s a game of musical chairs you don’t want to play.

So, if we decide to risk it all and go with only one vanity bowl – what the heck do we do with all that spare room the missing bowl creates? Well, I’m not suggesting we shrink the vanity size. The storage is valuable, and the floor space a smaller vanity would open probably isn’t going to do much for you. Keep the vanity the same size. Center the vanity sink cabinet and flank it with drawer bases on either side (if you have a double bowl vanity now, you probably have the opposite – two vanity sink bases and a center drawer base or worse, one of those stupid make-up table areas). This will look great and be very functional. Plus, you now have his and her drawer bases – way cool.

But, on top is where things can really get interesting. With only one sink in the middle, consider adding two countertop hutches, one on each side. Her stuff, his stuff – don’t touch, don’t look. Throw a couple of outlets inside each hutch and you can plug in all those devices required to maintain beauty, never seeing a cord again (just make sure they are GFI protected). Add a light rail across the top and a couple of mini cans above, solid mirror on the back wall, and “whammo” – you’ve got a killer bath setup that offers a ton of storage space and guarantees relationship bliss.

You can make it on just one bowl. People have done it and lived long, happy lives. Consider it. If you really need two, I’d recommend the side by side toilets instead.

Mark Lewis

ProCraft Contracting, Inc.