How to Finish a Basement in Chicago

The basement floor in the house is an additional area for the embodiment of your ideas. The interior of the basement floor depends only on the flight of your imagination. It can be used to equip a library, a gym, a cozy living room, a private office and even a pool. It all depends only on your creative ambitions and financial capabilities. Basement Finishing in Chicago is more than just a service, many of this city’s residents are implementing their daring designs with a basement finish.

Of course, a basement finishing in Chicago is an opportunity for self-expression and at the same time increasing the possibilities of using living space.

A room such as the basement has its own characteristics. Because of the lack of sunlight, it is not suitable for equipping living rooms, and therefore rooms for recreation and leisure are placed in it.

So, in order to turn a basement room into a place suitable for spending free time, you must first of all create a comfortable microclimate. First of all, this applies to the device of water protection (protection from water and dampness in the room); thermal insulation and ventilation. In addition, the communication system must be well thought out and organized: electricity, water supply, the Internet, and so on. After all conditions are met, proceed to the next stage.

Basement Finishing

Of course, I immediately want to start the most pleasant thing – the decor of the room, but, before this happens, you need to carry out preliminary construction work. As mentioned above, waterproofing will provide a comfortable living in the basement. It will protect the walls from freezing and moisture. Basically, basement waterproofing is carried out simultaneously with the construction of the house, but there are exceptions. If you are one of them, and you have a basement without waterproofing, it is better to contact specialists who, in a short time, will perform all the necessary procedures at a professional level.

Concrete Floor Screed

The next thing to look out for is the floor. Depending on the type of foundation structure, the floor finish, or rather, its type, may vary. However, all options, at their core, boil down to one thing – the implementation of high-quality concrete screed.

For the perimeter foundation, the base is a sand blanket. Therefore, before using concrete, the floor is covered with roofing material, and a reinforcing mesh is laid on top.

If the base is a concrete slab, use a penetrating impregnation. Interacting with concrete, the compounds crystallize and do not allow moisture to penetrate into the concrete.

We turn to the insulating tape and penetrating compounds. Treat all corners and joints with a penetrating compound. This applies to both floors and ceilings with walls. Then they are glued with insulating tape. Despite the fact that the insulation dries quickly, after filling the screed, at least 28 days must pass before proceeding to the next stage of work.

After the screed is ready, we proceed to the device of the finished floor. Now it all depends on what kind of room you want to make from the basement. If it is a living room or an office, you can take care of heated floors, if it is a wine cellar, we move on to choosing a floor covering. If you don’t know what you want, it is enough to look through a couple of interior catalogs and read a few articles, and an idea will appear in your head.

Underfloor heating can be replaced with a heat-insulating layer of wood concrete slabs or expanded clay.

When performing a basement finishing in Chicago we should consider the design of a room. Do not forget that very little daylight enters through the small windows, so pay special attention to the lighting. Before the basement is insulated, the electrical work must be completed and the electrical wiring is removed. Finishing a basement is carried out only after that.

Ideas for Interior Decoration

Further – a small instruction on how the interiors of basements and basements can look like, and what materials are advisable to use for their implementation.

Recreation Areas

The word “basement” is always associated with antiquity – and indeed, country style is always held in high appreciation. Therefore, very often, in accordance with its canons, halls, billiard rooms, living rooms, rooms for watching movies are decorated on the basement floor.

Among the materials that make it possible to realize such an idea:

natural and decorative stone, including gypsum;

clinker tiles, stylized as old bricks;

decorative plaster with the texture of hewn stone, cracked plaster (craquelure);

wooden beams – both structural and overhead hollow;

wood or other covering imitating its texture (laminate, ceramic tiles).

In Conclusion

Finishing a basement in Chicago in a residential building is one of the most difficult jobs. Here you need to take into account many factors and make all the necessary accurate calculations. Excavation work in the vicinity of a loaded foundation, without exaggeration, can be attributed to jewelry.