who "re-did" your basement?

finally ready to pull the trigger on the basement renovation and wondering if there were any "middle of the road" suggestions for contractors, up to say $20k (factoring in an extra $3k-$4k to re-run electric and plumbing as previous owner had everything run under the beams, shortening the ceiling).

dont want to go cheap but not looking for Versailles. most contractors we've spoken with are one or the other and surprisingly seem unable to do anywhere inbetween.

drywall, encase floor to ceiling pipes/beams, basic laundry room, basic half bath.

rob testa did ours and we love it and well within your budget 908-868-4347
We opted to stain cement and put down rugs vs cost of new floors and he did allot of reuse including working with our vintage tin ceilings

Rick Hoyos is great for doing whatever you want him to do. He did our "middle of the road" kitchen and powder room (and rebulit our entryway floor, and redid both our garage and Maplewood room ceiling!), but I've seen some really high end stuff he's done as well. I know he does basements.

http://rchomeimprovements.com/

Tell him Annie referred you if you get in touch.

We re-did our basement 1.5+yrs ago in the middle of winter. Initially the many quotes we got were outrageous, pretty much the cost of doing a kitchen. We ended re-using a contractor that we had used previously for other work. We did get many of the finishes ourselves but he was able to accomplish a lot of things that other contractors told us we could not do or made it prohibitively expensive. For example we had a 1+ foot step up in the back of the basement where the laundry area is located and to enter the bath. DH couldn't use either area because he is 6.1 and was too tall for the space. Every contractor we asked about removing that step up of solid concrete told us that we couldn't because it was likely the pipes were below it and lowering further would put them below the water line. Some quoted us crazy quotes (double of your budget) to get this done. Well our contractor brought in his plumber and he, once again, provided some solutions. We moved the pipes to the ceiling between the joists for all the upstairs lines, and to the wall for the washer and dryer. For the bath we installed a pump. This took up a significant amount of our budget since a back flow preventer was also installed, since the main reason for re-doing the basement was sewage back up. This is the resulting space. Note that we did install tile but it is covered by rugs because the baby uses this space to play and the tile is hard and cold, but we wanted something that could get wet just in case of another issue.

Here ya go...

-s.

Ahh thanks! Sorry about that!

awesome. thanks for sharing pics!

It is nothing luxurious, but it is clean and functional which for a basement is all we really wanted.

Similar looking results to the above with

R.N. Kimball and Sons
21 Floral St
Chatham, NJ 07928
(908) 419-9926
Contact: Kostrowski, Paul

Paul is the best and maybe THE nicest guy on the planet. Our basement was hell, and now it's a gem. French drains, new powder room, new sump pump, new air ducts, framing, laundry room, tile, and painted the open ceiling black to save head room. Incredibly reasonable.

pmartinezv: About how long did the renovation take?

I did my basement this past winter. It was a little more than you're looking to spend, but we were 100% unfinished and needed a lot of electrical and plumbing moved (and electric service upgraded). We had 3 rooms added - laundry, tv room and play room. Here are a few before and after photos. Steve Ramos did the work. Very, very happy with how it turned out!
Lmk if you want his info. Happy to send.

pmartinezv said:

It is nothing luxurious, but it is clean and functional which for a basement is all we really wanted.

I would say it is way luxurious ... awesome space.

@debpod glad you had a good experience with steve. he's on our shortlist of contractors as our realtor also used him for her basement. juat wanted some other options (and he's tough to get ahold of).

thanks for sharing the pics - looks great!

meihua said:

pmartinezv: About how long did the renovation take?

The renovation took almost 2 months. Full disclosure, we did it in Dec/Jan so the holidays and some of the inspections (sick inspector) did cause a few weeks of delays. Because it was a basement we were not in a big hurry, but I did hate not having a washer/dryer during that time. Best to make arrangements with neighbor to use theirs if feasible. Going to the laundromat sucks.

Thanks! You're welcome to come see our basement at some point if you'd like.
As for Steve, if he does the work, you will probably only be without use of your washer dryer for a day or two. I think we were without ours for a day and a half. Of course assuming there's a way to keep it hooked up during construction (there usually is). Send Steve a text - he'll get back to you He's totally worth the wait!

debpod said:

Thanks! You're welcome to come see our basement at some point if you'd like.
As for Steve, if he does the work, you will probably only be without use of your washer dryer for a day or two. I think we were without ours for a day and a half. Of course assuming there's a way to keep it hooked up during construction (there usually is). Send Steve a text - he'll get back to you He's totally worth the wait!

Unfortunately the area that had to be removed (1 foot of concrete) and new concrete floor layed was the laundry area. Just the inspections at every stage caused that area to take more than 2 weeks. An inspection needs to be done at each stage (waterproofed layer under gravel, then concrete being poured, then pipes etc).

debpod said:

Thanks! You're welcome to come see our basement at some point if you'd like.
As for Steve, if he does the work, you will probably only be without use of your washer dryer for a day or two. I think we were without ours for a day and a half. Of course assuming there's a way to keep it hooked up during construction (there usually is). Send Steve a text - he'll get back to you He's totally worth the wait!

Hi do you have Steve Ramos' contact info? Thanks!

sramos585@gmail.com Is his email. I'll grab his phone number in a few!

Hope it works out with Steve - we didn't have any luck. He seems very busy at the moment.

debpod said:

sramos585@gmail.com Is his email. I'll grab his phone number in a few!

thanks!!

jameskpolk said:
Hope it works out with Steve - we didn't have any luck. He seems very busy at the moment.

Hi James - which contractors did you end up using? We're revising the basement conversation - thanks!

pmartinezv said:
We re-did our basement 1.5+yrs ago in the middle of winter. 

Hi - are you able to share which contractor you used and info? Thanks!

CapnMarko said:

pmartinezv said:

It is nothing luxurious, but it is clean and functional which for a basement is all we really wanted.

I would say it is way luxurious ... awesome space.

Yeah, I agree. It looks great. I want you basement!