I've heard of finishing a basement but I've never heard of "digging" one out. What exactly does that entail?

Basement. (from someone who is currently remodeling her basement!)

Cost will depend on the type of house. I have several friends in close in DC who have dug out their townhouses- typical job started with 6 feet basement, 1000 sf that they turned into one or two bedrooms plus small basic kitchen. These jobs tended to cost around $125k, assuming pipes and futures were generally all where they would stay. Our townhouse has only 4.5 feet in the basement (really a cellar) and pipes and beams everywhere, so when we asked around for informal estimates (when we were getting estimates for upstairs work) I had three contractors guess around $200k.

bump

We're thinking about digging out our basement also. Right now it has about 6.25-6.5 ft ceilings. I'm not sure we'd need to do the whole thing. Have other people done this? What are the costs for that kind of project?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:depends on the size of your current house and layout. I would say improve the basement first because it's odd to have a low unusable basement.

Unusable? It's still usable for storage and workshop purposes.

Most people want a basement for living not storage

I hate basement living spaces. I'd always rather build out if I have the room. I live in an expensive close-in neighborhood where few people have garages, so the basement is important to us for that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:depends on the size of your current house and layout. I would say improve the basement first because it's odd to have a low unusable basement.

Unusable? It's still usable for storage and workshop purposes.

Most people want a basement for living not storage

Yeah the garage is used for storage, everyone knows that!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:depends on the size of your current house and layout. I would say improve the basement first because it's odd to have a low unusable basement.

Unusable? It's still usable for storage and workshop purposes.

Most people want a basement for living not storage

Anonymous wrote:Assuming all things being equal (time, money, ect), what is the better home improvement project from a re-sale perspective -digging down in basement and finishing that (current basement has 6.5 foot exposed ceilings and cement floor) or expanding small sunroom both out and up to addition to the second floor (which would give more room in master bedroom and ultimately give us enough space to give kids separate rooms of they want)?

Basement. Basement. Basement. Basement.

Anonymous wrote:depends on the size of your current house and layout. I would say improve the basement first because it's odd to have a low unusable basement.

Unusable? It's still usable for storage and workshop purposes.

Anonymous wrote:depends on the size of your current house and layout. I would say improve the basement first because it's odd to have a low unusable basement.

And if you do the basement add a bedroom and full bath to increase resale value

depends on the size of your current house and layout. I would say improve the basement first because it's odd to have a low unusable basement.

^ + 1

I would think the sunroom. Not just for resale, but because it makes your house more livable. But looking at resale, making your master more spacious and potentially increasing your # of bedrooms is huge.

Assuming all things being equal (time, money, ect), what is the better home improvement project from a re-sale perspective -digging down in basement and finishing that (current basement has 6.5 foot exposed ceilings and cement floor) or expanding small sunroom both out and up to addition to the second floor (which would give more room in master bedroom and ultimately give us enough space to give kids separate rooms of they want)?