Remodeling Your Own Basement

These standards, and others no addresses here, need to be considered when doing any project, large or small. Basements have a few differences from most rooms that might make a basement remodel something you can do at least part of.

Basement Drywall
Hanging drywall is not that difficult of a task, but it is difficult to do it well and do it quickly. Professionals can start and finish a room in half a day. The seams and screw holes will be near invisible, and the paint will go on smoothly. What the professionals have going for them is that they get to practice everyday, and if you want to hang drywall in your basement and have it look good, you are going to need to practice.

Start in the garage, if it isn't already done. Garages typically have drywall hung without being painted, so yours will not look odd if you practice here. This practice will help you hang drywall in your basement. Remember that floor trim and crown molding will cover any mistakes on the top and bottom. What you need to concern yourself with are three areas: seams, screw holes, and dust. Dust has nothing to do with the quality of the drywall job, but it can increase your cleanup time dramatically.

Hanging drywall in your basement is something that you can do yourself if you are willing to work hard and get dirty. There will be a lot of cleanup, but you can save some money, since it will be forgivable if you make a few mistakes.

Basement Wiring
I do not recommend doing any wiring yourself unless you are a skilled, knowledgeable contractor. If you are, most likely you aren't reading this article. Wiring and electricity have a dangerous element that no one should try as a way to save money or do themselves. However, if you are going to hang the drywall yourself, you need to contract this out before you hang the drywall.

Concrete Staining in Your Basement
A good basement flooring solution is to stain the concrete floor in your basement. This is really hard to mess up, since most concrete stains are a mottled complexion. This mottled look will hide any hiccups in the stain application, and at least make it more difficult to see. It might look a little better to go with one solid color, but here mistakes can be seen.

DIY Practice
The brilliant thing about concrete staining is that is gives a very cool effect to concrete and it is easy to apply. Not to mention that if you sell the home and someone doesn't like the color or the effect, they can just lay concrete right over top of it. A drawback to this process is that once you stain concrete, it is not coming back. You can't remove stain once it is already in. So be sure you have the color and the look that you like, because it's permanent.