With spring finally here, a great home remodeling project could be to finish all or part of your basement. You can create the room you've always wanted – whether it is a home theater, office, or personal sanctuary. Before you do any remodeling to your basement, however, make sure that it's protected from water and dampness. With over 24 patented basement waterproofing products, Basement Systems can protect your basement investment.

Home Theater
A basement can become the perfect place for your dream home theater.

Why in the basement?
Building a home theater in your basement has great advantages, including natural sound dampening and isolation from most of the rest of the house, no expensive window blinds to block out the light, and adding to your living space instead of taking over previously used areas.

A basement home theater makes it easy to set up a front projection screen – like in a real movie theater – because these systems are very sensitive to ambient light. An LCD, plasma or rear projection screen is more suitable for bright environments.

For high quality sound you'll want to put in a subfloor and carpet over a concrete floor to help stop nasty booming from your speakers. Plan on a good budget for stereo equipment, since great sound enhances your movie experience.

Comfort is also a key element to the theater experience. Uncomfortable seating is not something you want to copy from a commercial movie theater!

Home Office
Out of the hustle and traffic of upstairs, the basement is a great place to get work done.

Why in the basement?
By separating work space from living space you can be more productive and avoid distractions.

Instead of trying to fit your home office in and around your regular living space, creating a space especially for working lets you arrange things the way you want and spread out without taking space away from the rest of your house.

More Ideas
• Home Gym
• Bar Room
• Extra Bathroom
• Spare Bedroom
• TV Room
• Music Room
• Game room – finally a place for that pool table!

There are also contractors who will help you build your dream basement. For example, if you live in the United States, Total Basement Solutions can help you achieve that basement dream.

Pictures from Finished Basement Company.

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Subflooring
Making your new living space in your basement more comfortable usually involves carpeting, and one thing you don't want to have to do is tear it up every time there's a rainstorm. Traditional wood subflooring, if it gets wet, stays wet. There's just no way to get the moisture out from underneath without tearing everything up – and that's not even mentioning later problems with rot and mold!

The solution is a subfloor that won't rot or foster mold growth. ThermalDry Floor Matting is the only all-plastic basement floor system in the world. Water won't ruin it, mold won't grow on it and the grid pattern underneath allows air to flow beneath them so water vapor doesn't condense into water. The 12 inch square tiles are only a 1/2-inch high, so they won't squander your ceiling height either.

Dehumidification
Another important factor in keeping your finished basement in good condition is removing damp air. Most dehumidifiers are small units that aren't designed for the cool air found in most basements, so not only do they struggle to take the moisture out of the air but they don't work for your whole basement.

The SaniDry Basement Air System is specially designed to work with cool air and has a powerful blower to not only grab more air but move it around your whole basement. This system is not only more powerful than the competition, but is more energy efficient too – this is a rare dehumidifier that is Energy Star rated. This means that the SaniDry system can pull up to 100 pints of water per day out of your basement air while using the same amount of energy as a 40-pint dehumidifier.

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