Basement Finishing DIY for $13,200

This post may contain affiliate links, please see my full Disclaimer policy here.

Here I’ll share our story of how we served as our own general contractors/laborers and finished a main living space, 2 bedrooms, and 1 full bathroom for approximately $13,200.

Here is the basic rundown of our costs. To start with, our builder-grade home came with the basement already framed and the tub/shower combo put into the bathroom with plumbing started and set, so those costs are not included. We did adjust the framing a tiny bit to make a nook for a dry bar and the opening for the kids’ hide-out.

• Plumbing: $3600. This included adding the HVAC tubing and openings, installing and finishing the bathroom fixtures, adding a laundry sink in the storage area. As general contractor, I got 3 different quotes, and this one was the lowest from a reputable company in our area. I also had each prospective plumber come over and give a quote so that I could meet them and get a feel for whether I agreed with their assessment, and could get a read on how honest I thought they were being with me. The highest quote was almost twice what we paid.
• Electrical: $1500. This included any purchased fixtures that we didn’t already have as well as all of the installation. We have a good friend who is an electrician and he gave us a great deal. It would have definitely been twice this cost without the friend discount. I have heard that you can learn to do this work on your own, but after seeing what they knew how to do, I know we would have royally screwed this up. He put switches where they belong, added canned lighting, installed bathroom vent/light, and much more that we never would have thought about.
• Drywall, including mudding, taping, and texture. $3500. Again, I had to shop around. I got 4 quotes, the highest one being twice this amount. I finally found our guy on Craigslist, an independent drywaller. We paid for the drywall supplies ourselves (he ordered them) and had them delivered from Menards. It took his guys about 3 days to get it all hung, then about a week to get all of the mudding, taping, and texturing done. Dude, we would still be down there scratching our heads as to where to start.
• Furniture. Barn wood bar and vanity: $1300 total. Storage built-ins: $500. I found a barn-wood builder in our area on Craigslist, and he worked with us to create the perfect pieces at a great price.
• Flooring. $2300. We waited for a sale at Menards to get this nice, thick barnwoody looking vinyl plank tile in Berkley Oak. It had a built in pad, and could be floated right over concrete. Because we haven’t had any water issues in 3 years, we opted to skip a moisture barrier.
• Paint. $500. We waited for the Sherwin Williams 40% sale, then got most of what we needed. I also asked them for contractor grade for the ceiling. We got 5 gallons of Egg Shell Bungalow Beige, 5 gallons of Contractor grade Ceiling paint in Alabaster, and 3 additional gallons for accent walls in the bathroom and two bedrooms. I got three “sample” quart pots to do the Kids’ Hideaway. We ended up needing one additional gallon of Bungalow Beige and another gallon of Alabaster ceiling as well.
• Doors. $500. I waited for a sale and opted for solid 6 panel oak. We bought 5, pre-hung.
• Trim, shelving, closets, sound insulation. $500. I used the rebate (11%) or $289 we got from buying the flooring at Menards to lower the cost of the trim, etc. I splurged for the barn wood window ledges, driving to a barn wood distributor who gave me the widths and lengths I needed ($100).

Here is the framing we started with.  The builders did a great job.

Hubs made just a few adjustments: first he added a door for the kids’ nook.

He also added a bump-out for the dry bar.

Here is a picture after about 6 weeks of work. The electrical was set, the plumbing set, and the drywallers had finished mudding and taping.

One other step that Hubs and I took was to add sound insulation ourselves in the bedroom walls that adjoined the main living space as well as the ceilings of each. You could hear the toilet flushing above the room you see here, not a pleasant experience for a guest!

This was the first of the painting extravaganza. I just wanted to get the ceiling (two coats of SW Alabaster), and the bar nook area (two coats of SW Bungalow Beige) ready so that we could set the bar and get the vanity down the stairs. We had a few friends coming to help and with a furniture dolly, it only took 3 burly men to get it down there and set.Here she is, all set in place. It was a tight fit and took a little hammering, but glad that our builder knew to give it a little leeway. Oh, I can’t wait to start serving Moscow Mules from this bar!Here is the bathroom vanity. I needed the plumbers to come and set this in place so that they could work around the piping and get the holes in the right place. Once that was done, we carried on with the painting, and I made this fun castle mural for the kids’ hideaway under the stairs. I used SW Wall Street for the dark gray background. Once the painting was done, it was time to hang the doors. We used pre-hung, unfinished doors, and with a lot of shimming and YouTube tutorial watching, it wasn’t too difficult. That being said, Hubs did most of it, so it wasn’t too difficult for me, anyways…I did the finishing of the doors however! Next came the flooring. Now, the directions and tutorials to vinyl plank flooring make it look so simple: snap, place, click, tap, move on. Well not really. We both ended up with bleeding fingers this first day, and it took a while to figure out how to maintain the necessary 1/4 inch space from the wall. We finally ended up using 1/4 inch trim, which you can see in the pictures if you look close. It also took a while to figure out that we needed to use a little jigsaw to cut pieces that would go around closet walls and door jambs. In addition, the little tapping block didn’t work so well, and we ended up using a scrap piece to fit into the tongue of the piece we were hammering and then hammer on that spare piece. The hardest part was going out the door of this room, through the little hallway and getting out into the large living area. You can see one of our spare pieces in the photo above. You can see where we hit it with the hammer, he he he. We managed to ALMOST finish this room in about 4 hours, once we got into the groove with the technique. Well, that’s where we are so far, in about 5 months of work….I’ll keep updating this post as we accomplish more!