Patrick Klever’s Basement Renovation – Part 1

"Thanks! I'm a civil engineer in construction management, and my home is where I get to play, doing the things I would otherwise only supervise! LOL

While in college, I figured out that if I didn't have to worry about money, I would've designed and built houses for a living. I have a long-standing principle that the difference between C+ and A- is not that much; and I believe that people would be willing to spend the little extra that it takes a builder to get to A-.

These days (as I get older), I think that the ideal job would be to host one of those DIY TV shows. You get just enough "hands-on" combined with a motivated crew, a compressed timeline, someone else's money (and cleanup), and continual variety.

BTW, I'm also going to send pix of the retaining wall and paver patio that I completed in November during visits home from Bulgaria. 🙂 It has a water feature that will be completed this summer. This was at the extreme end of DIY effort!"

Patrick T. Klever, PE

In a series of articles, Patrick walks us through his remodeling of his basement. The basement is a 1,000 square foot walk-out basement. The project included two bedrooms, one bathroom, an eat-in kitchen with all appliances, a living room, storage and closets and laminate flooring. He also installed a 200A subpanel.

The project took almost a year to complete. His cost was $13,000 and the only work he hired out was the sheetrock, and that was to save him six-weeks time.

In this first article, are two "before" pictures. "... the areas separated by the load-bearing walls running the length of the house didn't vary much from those two photos."

The bathroom project included granite tile and a granite-tiled countertop. It required moving the contractor-installed plumbing from the south side of the wet wall to the north side.