RemodelMyRoom.com

If you are remodeling your basement, now is the perfect time to incorporate a bathroom in the design. But should you put in a ½ bath, a ¾ bath, or a full bath? This all depends on what you need the bathroom for. In our basement remodel we only put in a ½ bath because that is what our basement was already plumbed for. I don’t think we would have put in a ¾ or a full bath anyway, because our plans for the basement remodel did not include people taking a shower or a bath, as we had plans for recreation only. We have no bedrooms in our basement, nor will we ever have one, so we really did not need a shower or bath. If you do have a bedroom or think you might use one of your rooms for a future bedroom, then I would suggest adding a ¾ bath (toilet, sink, and shower). It is nice to be able to give your guests or older children a bath with a shower nearby.

Certainly, when making plans for remodeling any area, you should balance your project costs very closely with respect to you budget and available space. The choices between ½ bath, ¾ bath or full bath can vary significantly in cost, as well as the amount of space required for each of these variations. In our case, since the basement was already pre-plumbed for ½ bath, we would have added a fair amount of expense to tear up the concrete and add the additional underground plumbing.

And even a larger issue was that we were somewhat constricted in our available space with respect to our planned layout. It is very important with your remodeling projects that you take the time and effort to draw your layout plans first, and we have an article at RemodelMyRoom.com to help you with that process. I encourage you to make several optional layouts, and work through all of the in the process of constructing your drawings. Do not begin your remodeling process with a phone call to you contractor, instead make your plans, prepare several drawings, and try to uncover many of these issues ahead of time. It is far less expensive to uncover these issues on a piece of drawing paper, instead of during the construction phase, and your final result will be much better due to this planning effort.

If your basement does not have existing plumbing then you will need to hire a contractor to do the work. They will have to tear up concrete to add in the plumbing and drainage and then they will need to put in ventilation. The cost for this should be addressed. Is it worth the cost for a bathroom? Only you will know the answer to that. I do know that before our basement remodel, we had an area in the basement set up for my children to play video games, and they were always running up the stairs to use the bathroom. I couldn’t wait to have the bathroom installed. In fact, that is the room I wanted to finish first so that the contractors could use it while they were working.