In our last post, we discussed the rubble foundation and the need for new footings. After the new footings were built, we were walking around the basement with drawings in hand and we realized that our architect never accounted for the correct dimensions of the exterior walls. We knew that our basement layout called for a “cozy” guest bedroom, but the real dimensions didn’t leave enough room to fit a full size bed. We quickly realized that we have to completely redo our basement layout and find something that works and we had to do this quick as our underground plumbing was scheduled to begin soon!

We spent the next two to three nights after work sketching out new layouts, trying to find the optimal use of space. What we ended up with, in our opinion, was a significantly better basement layout then we originally had. Our new layout cut down on wasted space and better incorporated public living space into the natural flow of the basement. This exercise moved us from a layout we were content with to a layout we are very happy with.

Once we finalized the new layout, we came back to our project and we taped out the full layout on the ground. Due to the timing between when we found the layout issue and when our plumber was scheduled to start work, there was not enough time to get our architect to complete official drawings. Though we created very accurate to scale sketches of our new layout, the underground plumbing must come up from the ground with only an inch or two of tolerance. We felt that taping out the layout, showing the contractors exactly where every wall will be, will go a long way to minimizing future errors in construction. Even with accurate drawings, we would strongly recommend to anyone working on a project of their own to go through a similar exercise. It proved to be a great way to visualize the future space and it provides a better guide to your contractors and can minimize mistakes.