Designing and Building a Custom Home: Planning, Floor Plans, Permits, Mechanical Systems, and Selections
Host:
Welcome to the Home Remodeling Show with Edge Construction on News Talk 1310 WIBA. Have a question? Email it to EdgeConstructionRadio@gmail.com.
Now, here is your host, Sean Prebil, on News Talk 1310 WIBA.
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction. You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
Write that down. Even better, if you have your smartphone handy, just pick it up and head over to EdgeConstructionCompany.com right now.
Check out the recently updated website. They are always updating it at Edge Construction. There are also links there to Houzz, Pinterest, and Facebook, all at EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
We will likely touch on some of the recent projects on the website as well, so it definitely behooves you to stop by the site.
Do you like that word, by the way, Mike?
Mike:
Behoove?
Host:
I do not think we have used that on the program.
Mike:
I think it was on my calendar this morning.
Host:
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
Of course, we are joined by Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction. Mike, how are you doing this morning?
Mike:
Great.
I was just thinking, where have I heard that? It sounds like a Mr. Howell comment.
Host:
Exactly. I think he may have used that. Gilligan’s Island, by the way. We could do a whole show on that one of these days.
We are going to be talking basement renovation this morning, aren’t we?
Mike:
We are.
It is probably not quite as exciting, but we are going to do our best.
Host:
One of the great things about living in the Midwest is basements.
The iHeartRadio app means the show goes out nationwide and even globally, and people do not always know how great basements can be. Simply having one can be a really good thing.
As we talk about economy and getting a lot of bang for your buck, a basement is a really good place to start that conversation, isn’t it?
Mike:
Yes.
If you are looking at the numbers, they have gone up budget-wise, but building a house now is probably in the $250-per-square-foot range and up. Maybe $300 a foot. I hear some of those numbers.
In a basement space, on a real budget, maybe you can do it in the $50 range, probably up to — I hate doing these multipliers — but we have done several over $100 a foot.
It is still a great buy because you already have a roof and a foundation. It is like an addition without an addition.
Host:
How are you guys doing with basement remodels?
We talk a lot about kitchens, bathroom remodels, trim work, and stuff like that. Basement remodels are still right up there too, aren’t they?
Mike:
Yes.
For us, things come in bursts. We will be in kitchen land for a year or half a year, and then baths kind of intersperse. One thing will push to the front.
Right now, we are doing more basements again.
I do not know exactly why. I think a lot of it has to do with asking, “How do we get more space?”
People like where they are living. The schools are great. The neighbors are great. They love the neighborhood and love the house. They just need more space.
One thing I want to touch on is that most basement finishes we show are in newer houses, maybe 10 years old or less. Those are relatively easy. You have a clean slate and can just go to town on it.
It means it has been built with modern codes. That foundation should be waterproofed and insulated. There is a good start, and it is going to have drainage around it. You are going to have a sump pump that will kick water out if that happens.
That is a good start.
But sometimes we do basements in really older houses, and a lot of times when we first walk into those, homeowners are saying, “Is this even possible? Look at this place.”
It seems like there is a lot that would prevent you from finishing that basement, but if you really need the extra space, let’s explore it.
Host:
It is interesting when we think about different types of homes, different generations, different decades, and those kinds of things.
Real quick with newer homes, and then I want to talk about older homes too, but with newer homes, a lot of builders have gotten wise to the fact that basements are often going to eventually be updated. They are accommodating for that, aren’t they?
Mike:
They are.
If you build a house now, you might get a basement bathroom rough-in. It is pretty common now for builders to draw a tentative plan — a theory of what they think could happen down there.
Maybe bedrooms go over here, a great room over there, some rough storage, and then a bathroom.
Builders will rough those pipes in so that, in theory, it makes it easier someday for you to finish the basement.
I say “in theory” because it does not always work that way.
When those pipes are roughed in, a lot of times we want to change things because this was designed maybe 10, 15, or 20 years ago.
I do not want people to be worried about that because sometimes we take those pipes, break up concrete, and relocate that bathroom across the basement.
Another thing people do not usually think about is that in a more modern house, your furnace and AC are normally going to be sized for that basement to someday be finished. It is not like you usually have to upgrade your furnace and AC to get the job done.
Host:
Interesting.
With the furnace and AC, are basements more energy efficient simply because of their location, or are they not as efficient?
Mike:
Yes and no.
It depends on the heat/cool axis. It sort of gets treated the same.
We are building this finished space in a 55-degree hole in the ground, so in theory, it should be easier to heat in the winter because it is not going to get quite as cold around it. It is also going to be easier to cool in the summer.
That gets us into different zones, which we should probably talk about.
In a house, normally you are going to have one heating zone, meaning there is one thermostat. It is probably centrally placed.
Do you have more than one thermostat?
Host:
We do. We have two.
Mike:
Look at the face.
Where are yours?
Host:
I have one in the main part of the house and then one on the back half of the house. We had an addition put on, and that has its own heating and cooling setting.
Mike:
Is it a separate furnace?
Host:
It is a separate recirculating pump off the boiler. We have one for each.
Mike:
But it is the same furnace?
Host:
Same system, yes.
Mike:
That is probably very nice because that addition heats and cools a little differently than the rest of the house. It has more windows in it.
Host:
It is all windows.
Mike:
You have a lot of heat gain, so you see the reverse of what a finished basement is.
That addition is a very exposed space. Maybe it is a little bit leaky because windows are not as efficient as walls at keeping heat and cool in.
In a basement, we can have a separate zone down there so that basement, which is definitely going to heat and cool differently, can have its own thermostat.
You can do that off your existing furnace. There is a cost involved, which does hit the budget, but I would say about half our projects end up with a separate zone in the basement.
Host:
We talk about kitchen remodels and hear about footprints.
You were alluding to roughed-in plumbing and things like that. You are not hemmed in by that. It is important to point out that just because there may have been a drawing or earlier plans, basements are quite flexible as far as what can go where, aren’t they?
Mike:
They are.
But I will say, when homeowners have a plan like that and a roughed-in bath, I think the perception is that the bath has to go there.
Yes, you would save money doing that. But I always think design should come first.
When that house was built, you might have had different plans. You might have thought differently. Maybe you were not as worried about it at the time and just said, “Let’s get it roughed in somewhere.”
From our side, we are not afraid of breaking up concrete. Moving pipes is just not that big a deal. We do it seemingly every week.
It is not as big a budget hit as you might think.
If you are a homeowner and the design is really helped by moving or rearranging those pipes a little bit, we are happy to do that.
Host:
What about things like egress?
Egress windows are fantastic for bringing in light, but they are also a safety feature. Depending on what you are going to do in that lower space, they could also be required by code, couldn’t they?
Mike:
Yes.
Start with a bedroom. If you are going to have a bedroom, you have to have two forms of egress. You can go out the door, up the stairs, and get out. That is one form.
Another form has to be out of that same room, so most of the time, you have to be able to get out a window, unless there is another stairway going out of that bedroom.
The code is basically a 20-by-24-inch opening. Generally, we put in a four-foot-wide window. If we are going to make a hole, let’s make a hole. You can do a casement window and still have a big enough space to get out of. It has to be, I think, 44 inches off the ground or less.
The benefit is safety, but it is also a feel thing.
We have also put windows into great room spaces. Even if they are looking at a retaining wall or something, that is still a window.
There is something therapeutic about having some kind of sunlight come in, even in Wisconsin, where six months of the year you have probably not seen a lot of it.
I do not think any of the times we have put extra windows in a basement that people have regretted it.
Host:
We are talking this morning with Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction, about tips for renovating and remodeling your basement.
As we look at some of this bigger-picture stuff, we will get into some more nuanced areas here and there.
We were talking about newer basements, but you mentioned older homes as well.
This is a popular feature for folks with older homes that may have been remodeled in the past or maybe have never had that done. You are experiencing folks calling and saying, “We love the neighborhood, and for a variety of reasons, we want to do this.”
Just because your house is older does not preclude a basement remodel, does it?
Mike:
It does not.
It can definitely be tough.
If you go on our website and look at the Whole House Remodel Lower Level, go there just to see what is possible.
This was a basement where the first time I walked in, I thought the house should just be condemned. It was really bad. That was not the homeowner’s fault or anything. It was just that the ceilings were right on the edge of code, so things felt low, closed in, dark, and damp.
We had to solve all those problems.
It was a basement that had water coming in, so we did drain tile on the outside. Then we snuck this bedroom in and got an egress window in the only possible place.
It was really a trick.
The people who usually do our egress windows looked at it and said, “We are not going to do it.”
We had the equipment, so we did it ourselves. I would say it was not pleasant. It was not fun to have to get it in there. But the end result speaks for itself.
So that Whole House Remodel Lower Level, if you can get to the before pictures of that lower level, just be sitting down.
Host:
You mentioned keeping the moisture out — not just water from outside, but also basements present an interesting challenge when it comes to moisture in general.
Even if it is watertight, there are things that need to be done to mitigate moisture. Anytime you are at a lower level, moisture and other things come into play, don’t they?
Mike:
Yes.
That damp basement we are all familiar with has a lot to do with air movement.
If a basement is unfinished, it might have a heat register sticking out of the bottom of a heat trunk, but it is generally not moving a lot of air. A lot of times, they do not even have return air there, so the air can get very stale.
It is concrete, so you can get some condensation. In the winter, the cold outside sort of makes its way in. Heat moves toward cold, and wherever they meet, you get a little condensation.
You can get this high-humidity, damp, dank basement almost all the time.
By the time you finish it and really do a good job of HVAC down there, you are cycling the air several times an hour. You are really moving things around. That feel and smell can go away.
There are things that can help. If you do a good job insulating, that helps too.
We insulate all of our inside walls on the inside of the concrete walls when we finish a basement, even if we do not have to by code, because we are doing whatever we can to separate the inside temperature from any outside forces there.
Host:
What about ceiling height for basements?
I feel like newer homes have gotten a lot better about it.
I know we have talked before about the house I grew up in. It was very old and had fieldstone. It was definitely not a candidate for any type of remodel. The ceiling was also quite low.
You want to make sure you have ceiling height.
Have you had projects where folks say, “Let’s just go lower with the basement and redo everything from the foundation down”?
Mike:
We have.
If you are going to have finished space or bedroom space in a basement, you need to have 84 inches clear, so seven feet, for I believe over 50 percent of the space.
The trouble with some Madison houses is that there were some modest houses built in Madison’s past, and I do not know why they built them a little shorter.
We have had some that were at 83 inches or 82 inches.
Prior to the last year or two, inspectors often looked at it and said, “Whatever you are doing down there is going to really improve this house.”
Sometimes they would let it go through and slide, which I think is probably the way it should be looked at.
Right now, the feeling downtown is that if it is 73 and seven-eighths, we are not going to improve this. That is very frustrating for some homeowners because there is nothing we can do to get that ceiling height.
In our past, when it has been really important to somebody, we have pounded out the concrete in the basement floor and basically poured a ledge around the outside because you are sitting on footing, so you cannot get rid of that.
Then we come back in, pour a floor, dig things out, and lower it enough to get it down.
You can imagine this is not a pleasant job. Some of these unpleasant jobs cost a lot of money, so it really needs to be worth it to do something like that. But we have done it.
We have also done it when concrete floors were in terrible shape.
We talked about old houses and fieldstone walls. Sometimes those floors were dirt or only partially finished with concrete. There are times where you say, “This floor is just so bad. We need to get rid of it and start over.”
Host:
Really interesting stuff this morning with Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction.
We will talk about some of the pretty stuff and what they do with basements as we are laying out the groundwork this morning on the Home Remodeling Show with Edge Construction, talking about renovating your basement.
Do not forget the website and some of the cool pictures. If you have not been there recently, check it out. It is always being updated: EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
That is Edge Construction Company dot com.
There are links there as well to Facebook, Houzz, and Pinterest.
The telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
Edge Construction brings you the Home Remodeling Show right here on 1310 WIBA.
Host:
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction. You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
We are talking this week about renovating and remodeling your basement.
Mike, during the break, you were talking about fresh air and other things. Before the break, you were also talking about comfort and how moisture often comes from air that is just sitting there.
Having airflow and clean air in the basement is important too, isn’t it?
Mike:
Yes. I think it is one of the biggest things.
There is a lot of innovation coming now in HVAC systems, weirdly enough, because we thought we had it figured out. We got furnaces to 98 percent efficient and things like that.
There is new technology, and I know we talked about it last time we recorded, for bringing in fresh air and doing that efficiently.
Energy recovery ventilators, or ERVs, are basically a system that does that. It brings in fresh air, but it sort of steals the cold out of it and uses the warm air that it is going to ventilate back outside to help warm up that incoming fresh air.
I do not know if I am making sense or not.
Host:
Perfect.
Mike:
It is a way to get fresh air into your house, and that really is a key to having a comfortable home.
Nobody wants to smell that dark, dank smell, but sometimes the things you cannot smell can do harm too.
You cannot smell radon. You cannot smell CO2. There are all these things.
Bringing fresh air in is important. I am glad a light is getting shined on it because we can control this with a little new technology and a little money.
If you are totally in the dark, do a little research. Google ERVs, energy recovery ventilators. It is very cool what they can do and how they can change the environment inside your house and hopefully make it a healthier place to live.
Host:
We have talked about some of these livability features.
I think of the creature comforts and some of the really cool design things you are doing with basements, but it really comes down to the basics.
You talked about airflow. We also touched on bringing in natural light and lighting in general.
Those areas have made a substantial difference in the quality and expectations for what a basement remodel should be about: making that space just as good, comfortable, high-quality, and clean, with good air and good light.
These are all part of creating that great space, aren’t they?
Mike:
They are.
When you were talking, we mentioned the natural light thing and egress. One little blip that popped into my brain is that the code actually makes provision for a natural light requirement in a bedroom.
I believe it is five percent of the square footage of the bedroom. They do not count the closet.
There are times when somebody wants to do a really big bedroom in the basement, and we say, “We have to put in a bigger window, more windows, or a bigger window because we have to satisfy the natural light requirement.”
It is not just in a basement. If you have bedrooms upstairs, when we build a new house once in a while, we are conscious of that natural light requirement. We do not want to get red-tagged because of that.
But there is also a feel thing.
I have really enjoyed doing projects where we put a bank of windows into a basement or maybe at least one window in a great room. I think people are drawn to looking out. I do not know what it is about natural light.
Host:
When natural light is not an option, what do we do?
I know there have been some amazing advancements with lighting, and we talk about lighting in every single project we ever discuss on this program.
Light is a huge part of it, and the basement is no exception, is it?
Mike:
It is not.
Whether it is upstairs or downstairs, we never treat this as a lesser space, especially when it comes to lighting.
I call it daylighting. We want to daylight it, which means you have the ability to go into a room and make it seem like you have daylight in there.
You also want to control it because not everybody wants light all around them all the time. You have to be able to dim it, massage it, and get it the way you like it.
One thing that has really helped is the LED options.
Our standard now is a brand called TAM, I think. It looks like a recessed fixture, but it is not really. It is an inch-thick stamped fixture.
I think it is made for basements because if you look up after mechanicals, in that floor system above you, you are going to see heat runs, wires, and pipes.
You might think, “If I had to do an old-style can light, those things stick up into those joist spaces six or eight inches.”
That really limited where you could put lights in the past.
Now, with LED technology, we can kind of put them wherever we want. You can straddle a framing member, a two-by-10, or something in that basement behind the drywall, and put the lights where they are going to do the most good.
That has helped us a ton.
Host:
Do you run into questions about noise?
I ask because when you think of the basement being the lowest level, are there things that can be done to mitigate main-floor noise into the basement, or vice versa?
Mike:
There are.
Entry level is to stuff some fiberglass insulation up there. Does it work great? No. But it will dull the sound somewhat.
Noise travels through vibration. You have flooring on top of plywood subfloor, framing members, and drywall attached below, so everything is connected. The vibration goes right on through.
We have experimented with some things. There is a metal product called Z-channel. It looks like a Z and separates the drywall from the framing member. But it will lower your ceiling height about an inch.
I think it is somewhat limited in how much it actually works.
There is nothing we have found that works great and stops all the noise, but there are things you can do to dull it.
Have we talked about Rockwool insulation on the show?
Host:
I know you and I have talked about it off air, but I do not know if we have talked about it on the show.
Mike:
Rockwool is kind of what it sounds like.
It is a really good insulator. It kind of looks like insulation but denser. I do not know how else to describe it. It is usually kind of a tan color, and it is thick and heavy.
Rockwool is ground-up rock. They spin it with some other things and make an insulation product.
It is by far the best insulator I have ever seen, and it is a great sound insulator.
I have seen demonstrations at shows where they have a 2,000-degree torch burning on it all day, and it does not faze it. It is rock.
You can put it in water, and it will float. It does not really get soaked with water. It is a wonderful product.
In Europe, they use a lot of it on the outside of houses. They use rigid Rockwool and may put six inches or more on the outside of the house.
One of the benefits they will talk about is that it is a great insulator, but it is also a great sound insulator. If you are near a busy road, you are not hearing that noise come in.
In a basement, we have a basement finish going on right now where we had this discussion with the homeowner. He was a pretty experienced homeowner.
We could do a lot of things, and he said, “Would you let me do my own Rockwool insulation in that ceiling?”
Yes. It did not matter to us. We did not have to deal with it. He got what he wanted, probably cheaper than if we had to be in the middle.
It is also a good product to use around a bedroom. In basements, we usually have a bedroom butting up to the great room, and there might be a pool table, foosball table, or movie going on in there. It is good to insulate those walls and separate things out.
Host:
Interesting.
Do subfloors make a difference with that?
I remember seeing a commercial years ago during one of the remodeling TV shows. They were talking about keeping noise down. Does that type of material make any difference, or is it mostly marketing?
Mike:
I am unconvinced about that.
I will say that this subfloor thing goes from really cheap and crappy to really well-made.
The more stable your product is — usually three-quarter-inch OSB, oriented strand board, or plywood — the better.
We use a really good marine-grade OSB when we frame. If it rains on that stuff, it does not swell up. It is super stable and strong.
I do feel like that will help.
When we have builders we work for and they use a cheaper product, it seems like we are going back for squeaks and noises. It is really hard to stop because that stuff gets a little wet and becomes less stable.
A lot of the plywoods are really good too, and it also comes down to how you fasten them and how you glue them.
Some of that noise comes from a floating floor on top of that plywood. When you walk across it in heavy boots or shoes, you hear that smack, smack, smack.
The more you can stabilize that whole system, the better.
Host:
Really interesting stuff, as always.
We are talking with Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction.
The website is EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is Edge Construction Company dot com.
It is a great website and resource to learn more about Edge Construction. There are also links to Houzz, Pinterest, and Facebook. If you have not been there recently, check it out. They are always updating EdgeConstructionCompany.com with recent projects.
If you are thinking about doing some remodeling, whether it is a basement, kitchen, any other room, or an addition, check out EdgeConstructionCompany.com and their Houzz page.
We will continue our conversation with Mike Twohig and talk more about basements next as the Home Remodeling Show with Edge Construction continues right here on 1310 WIBA.
Host:
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction. You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
We are talking this morning about remodeling your basement.
We have done a lot of the less glamorous stuff, which is the important stuff, by the way.
As we talk about doing a basement remodel, let’s talk about some of the fun.
Back in the day, you could maybe get away with lesser-quality materials and things in a basement. People do not want that anymore.
But one thing that is still somewhat true with basements is that people tend to be a little bolder. Am I right that the basement is where that tends to come out?
Mike:
That is the fun part.
If there was a countertop, cabinet color, or design choice that you were a little worried about upstairs when you built your house — maybe you really love it, but you do not know if you can put it on the main floor — the basement can be a place where you take some chances on design.
You alluded to this earlier: it is not a lesser space anymore.
I do not hear anybody talking about man caves as much anymore. It does not seem to be that way now.
Right from the start, our conversation is, “We are going to at least match your upstairs finishes.”
Most of the time, I think we go to a higher level.
The new construction process can be so fast. It is almost like you do not have a lot of time to make decisions sometimes.
When you have had time to think about it, and the remodel process does not operate at that pace, you can take your time. You get reaction time. You get to look at all the products.
That is the fun part because people will bring in a picture and say, “This is what I really like. Can we do that? Can we get close to it?”
Then the designers take over and make it work.
Host:
Do we see people using basements for entertainment, like wet bars and other spaces?
If you have company over, obviously here in Wisconsin there are a good six to 10 months where the outdoors may not be available. If you are going to have company over, maybe you want a great place where everyone can get together.
Are basements used for that a lot?
Mike:
Very much so.
From our side, we are designing areas for people to congregate. Whether we are doing your kitchen, even if it is small, we are going to start with that in the back of our mind.
Basements are no different.
You asked initially about wet bars. Probably around 80 percent of the basements we finish end up with a wet bar or dry bar, at least something down there.
I think it has a lot to do with entertaining, but it also has to do with guests. What if a relative or friend comes and stays for a while? Hopefully not too long, for those of you out there.
The time to do it is when this is all going in.
Basements lend themselves to niche-type areas, which are great for wet bars.
Maybe I always wanted a shuffleboard game.
Host:
Oh yeah.
Mike:
We see those once in a while.
Sean is making a big, depressed face.
Host:
I would love one. I dream of that.
Mike:
Do you have a pinball machine?
Host:
I have an arcade machine. I wish I had a pinball machine. Anyone selling pinball, contact me.
With entertainment, and you mentioned having guests over, do we still see movie theaters and that type of thing?
Specific spaces have fallen off, but they have not gone away entirely. There are still really nice TVs and comfortable seating for movies, the big game, and those kinds of things — just in a more comfortable, less rigid environment. Am I missing that?
Mike:
We talked about flexible spaces.
This great room has to do more than just be a wet bar and a place to watch the game.
For some people, that does mean if they want to watch a movie, there is a certain segment out there that is very picky about their AV choices. They want the best tech and want the sound to be right.
We have mostly gotten out of that business now. We used to do some of it just because we are an electrical contractor, and I do not want to say you get dragged in, but you kind of get dragged in.
A lot of times, we will run the wires for people if they are savvy enough to pick out their own product and put it up. Otherwise, we have people we recommend to help with that.
One innovation I really like, because it is not very intrusive, is being able to project on a wall.
I have seen it and watched movies this way. To me, I cannot imagine a higher-quality situation.
The typical way used to be that you had your projector up high, and you were projecting onto a screen. But screens are not flat. They curl up on the ends and can be kind of wavy. To me, it affects the experience.
I know people have figured out fixes for some of that, but about five years ago, when people wanted it, we started doing a really smooth finish on a projection wall.
That wall can be painted. It has to be a lighter color, obviously, but it can be the same paint that covers everything else in the basement.
We have a three-stage paint process with special paint that makes it a better surface to project on.
People who are in that world know what they want.
You can now have projectors sitting on the floor two feet in front of this wall and projecting perfectly.
You know more about this, so you should be talking about this.
Host:
I am amazed by projectors. It is not just how crisp the picture is, but the throw.
It used to be that if you wanted a nice big picture, you had to have this big, long area. Now, with projectors, lenses, and technology, it is amazing.
Mike:
It is amazing.
Because of the availability of that tech and the projection wall, we can have a space that does a lot of other things and still have high-end tech for projection.
Host:
Do we see home gyms and other things going into the space?
Is there a way to do a flex gym, where it is the gym sometimes? How does that get accommodated, or is that possible? Equipment is so big and heavy.
Mike:
We are seeing more of it.
There is some innovative tech on the gym side as far as workout equipment and things that come out from the wall and can do a bunch of things.
I always thought it should be flexible. Maybe it should be in the same room as the laundry because you can hang clothes.
Host:
The most expensive laundry room.
Mike:
We have one coming up with Murphy doors. I do not know if I have talked about those.
It is a door that can be a bookshelf, and you slide it open. Then there can be a room behind it. It looks like shelves or cabinets, and then you open it up and it is actually a door.
We have one coming up this summer where we are going to have a workout room behind the Murphy door.
It separates it from all the boxes and stuff you usually have in a basement, and you also have a nice space for working out.
Host:
Do you get people who do retreats or escape areas?
I think of having a nice room to unwind and decompress. As we are talking about gyms, maybe it is a little personal spot.
Do we see that type of thing where people say, “This is an area a little off the house. Maybe it is a place to go after work, have a brandy, and relax”?
That would be my dream.
Mike:
It would be mine too.
A lot of times, I do not know if we would see that because we are in there during construction. What people do with certain spaces later, we do not always know.
But I know there are blackout shades you can do now in windows where they basically seal out light 100 percent.
We sometimes have to trim those windows a little differently than we normally would so you can get something that fills the whole space and locks it down.
It is definitely possible to do those types of rooms.
In this case, placement figures in, lighting figures in, and how much we can black this out figures in. Maybe insulation and sound do too.
If you need that quiet area and the kids come rolling in at 3:30 and sound like a herd of elephants, I do not know how reflective you will be in that space.
Host:
I dream of having that room where it is just peace and quiet. You open it up, and there is a recliner and a TV, and that is it.
Mike:
But with one of these Murphy doors, you can hide that space from the rest of your family.
Host:
Like a sneaky space.
Mike:
A sneaky space.
Host:
We have to talk during the break.
We are talking with Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction. The website is EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
That is one of the fun things about basements. You never know what is possible until you start that conversation.
Pick up the phone and call Edge Construction at 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
We will continue the Home Remodeling Show with Edge Construction next here on 1310 WIBA.
Host:
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction. You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
We are talking this week about basement remodels, and we really just got started on some of the basic basement stuff.
One cool thing — and we just started touching on it in the last segment — is that basements allow a little more leeway for individual personalization.
Some things you may hold back on upstairs, you may have a little more flexibility with downstairs.
Part of that discussion is understanding and meeting with designers. How is this space going to be used? Who is going to be using it? What are the different things we want to accomplish with this space?
It can be a lot of fun, but it is also one of those areas where you really want to make sure you explore the options because when it is done right, it is a huge reward.
Mike:
Right.
It is not like you want to do this every 10 years when your needs change either.
When you are in that design process, you want to be working with a designer who is thinking, “We want to tick all your boxes, but we also are conscious of a future owner or maybe a maturing family.”
It might get used a certain way today, but we want this to fit four years in the future.
That is one thing I love about this flexibility trend in design. It is not just in basements. It is pretty much all over.
We want spaces to not necessarily be single-use. We want other possibilities down there.
That is a good trend in design and a good idea when you are designing your basement.
Host:
When we talk about basement design and overall design trends, we have talked about some of the different tools and websites out there.
When you go to EdgeConstructionCompany.com, Houzz and Pinterest are good examples of that.
When people come to you for basements today, do they often have an idea and say, “I saw something really nifty online. Let’s do this in the basement”?
Or is it one of those things where people say, “We just do not know. We just know we have this space, and we would love to make use of it”?
Mike:
It is about half and half.
I think it is really healthy for a homeowner to do some research on their own before they contact somebody like us because it helps you sift through what you like and what you do not like.
Sometimes it is even valuable when someone says, “I like this, but I do not know why.”
To a good designer, that tells them a lot. They can learn a lot about you based on things they see in your house that you like and maybe have purchased. They also learn from the things you bring to the table.
It is very common for me in the first meeting to say, “If you have anything tagged online, or if you have built a library on Pinterest or Houzz, please give us access to it because it will give us clues about what you are going to like.”
Host:
Really amazing stuff.
Speaking of Houzz, Pinterest, Facebook, and all that, head over to EdgeConstructionCompany.com. Check out their projects and those links as well.
If you have been inspired and are thinking about doing some remodeling, they would love to talk at Edge Construction.
Pick up the phone and call 608-636-3343. That number is so easy to remember: 636-EDGE.
Edge Construction brings you the Home Remodeling Show right here on 1310 WIBA.