INVESTING IN YOUR HOME
Beefing up the basement
Although basements are generally excluded from the overall livable square footage of a home, they’re more valuable to homeowners today than ever before. Gone are the cramped and cold basements of the past. Today, basements have been transformed into extremely useful spaces, and are often as functional and open as the main floor of a home.
“I would say almost everyone has a finished basement these days, but 20 or 30 years ago that wasn’t the case,” said Frank Ciavaglia, a local RBQ-licensed contractor and owner of FTC Construction Inc. “A finished basement adds great value to any home of any size; in fact, if a basement is unfinished at the time of a sale, most people finishit before they actually move in .”
Basements today typically come with seven-foot-high ceilings, making the space appropriate for a range of uses — from bedrooms and bathrooms, to home offices and playrooms.
“They usually represent a third or even half of the square footage of a home,” said Saguy Elbaz, real estate broker with Sotheby’s International Realty Québec. “People really customize the space to their needs, and some even convert them into rental units with their own entryways.”
But most people tend to use the space to address more basic needs.
“Often, people need an extra bedroom if they’re expecting another child or if they have a family member moving in that will need some private space,” Ciavaglia said. “Other people are still doing the man-cave thing with a home theatre and have it as a place to escape with their friends to watch Sunday football or Hockey Night in Canada.”
Another common use of basement space is to store kids’ things, and to provide room for them to play.
“It’s a place where people can leave their children’ s toys and clutter without having it in amain living area ,” Ciavaglia said.
While that may be true, having proper basement storage systems can help prevent the space from becoming a dumping ground for things you don’t want hanging around on the main floor.
“I always suggest building storage systems that offer flexibility,”
A finished basement adds great value to a home of any size ...
said Lois Kaplan, professional organizer with Organized Success. “This means using melamine or wood with predrilled continuous holes so that shelves can be easily moved as the needs might change .”
While some people opt for closed cabinetry, many choose cubbie style units with decorative bins or baskets, and others are even getting creative with previously unused space.
“More and more people are making use of areas under the stairs and creating reading nooks, craft areas, mini offices and more,” Kaplan said.
“The smallest spaces are even being converted into storage, like making drawers in stairs.”
Aside from attractive and functional storage systems, another way to make the basement feel open and livable is by considering features like windows, ceiling height and heating systems. But if your basement is lacking in any of these departments there are solutions, depending on your budget.
“Some people don’t have full height in their basement so they either opt for benching, the less expensive option, or underpinning, which costs more, as a way of increasing the overall height of their basement by excavating,” Ciavaglia said.
“Most people who go ahead with that type of work opt for under or hydro ni cf lo or heating, which is a type of heated flooring that works on a boiler system with plastic piping that’s installed before the concrete is poured to act as the main source of heat. It’s considered a much more efficient way to heat and em its a much more comfortable heat.”
The concept of digging down to create more space is something that’s commonly done in Europe, but less so in North America.
“Historical cities like Paris or London rely heavily on basements because if you can’t change the exterior of a building you have no choice but to dig down ,” Elbaz said. “For instance, in London there’s an area near Harrod’s department store where the owners of historical houses are known to dig down as many as seven storeys to add additional square footage and value to their properties.”
While they may not be excavating as often as their counterparts across the pond, the owners of luxury homes in Montreal are still doing some interesting projects in their basement space.
“In higher-end homes, the basement space is designed to complement the rest of the house,” Elbaz said.
“Typically, we see inclusions like a state-of-the-art gym, movie theatre with surround sound, and a wine cellar. These types of features go along with a certain lifestyle that buyers in that market look for and appreciate.”