Designing any room can be tough, but a basement can be especially uninspiring for design ideas. Bad lighting, a cold atmosphere and mechanical eyesores popping out everywhere don't give homeowners much to work with when they're coming up with remodeling designs. Use these basement design ideas to guide you as you revamp your basement.

Add Your Individual Style
This basement is yours so all of your basement design ideas should reflect your personal style. Not all trends work for everybody, so it's best to just use them as inspiration rather than copy them completely. Better Homes and Gardens suggests personalizing the items in your basement, such as repeating a pattern throughout the room by adding it yourself to pillows and window treatments. Choose a color and add squares of paint along the hanging edge of a curtain, and then add painted squares of the same color to pillows.

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Among all the necessary steps to take when hiring contractors, asking for and checking a contractor's references is most commonly overlooked by the homeowners.

Some are not comfortable with the idea of bothering a complete stranger, or calling someone on the phone to ask about the work performance of another.

Others just don't know how to do it, or what to ask.

As for exactly what to ask a contractor's reference, the NAHB (National Association of Home Builders) website has excellent tips.

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If a wet basement plagues your home, a French drain may be just the solution you need. There are many different types of French drains, however, and they are often referred to with different names (drainage system, drain tile, etc.). Having a high-quality drain tile installed around the interior perimeter of your basement is an effective way to keep water from flooding your basement and damaging everything in it.

Homes are typically built on compact, virgin soil. This soil is dug out and the foundation is built inside a hole. The hole is then refilled with loose soil, which compacts and settles over time. When it starts to rain, water enters this loose soil that is surrounding your foundation. This water starts pushing against your foundation and seeping through into your basement.

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As the real estate slump continues to worsen and homes become more and more difficult to sell, homeowners are finding that the best option for gaining more living space for their family is to finish the basement.  In response to this ever-increasing trend, many companies are designing wall panels especially for use in a basement.

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