Help me be an informed remodeler.

April 30, 2009 6:59 PM

Please recommend resources for learning about home remodeling, particularly basement finishing.

I am starting the process of getting the basement of my house finished. (Note that I will not do most of the work myself; I'm planning to hire a contractor.) I would like recommendations for books, websites, or other resources to learn about the remodeling process, what questions to consider, common problems and how to avoid them, what to watch out for, etc.

So far I have read information at www.buildingscience.com, which I think is great. It has specific recommendations about basement finishing that I found helpful.

Other building science resources would be helpful, but I also want to learn about design and planning, budgeting, finding a contractor, negotiating with the contractor, dealing with construction, and anything else I should know but haven't thought of yet.

posted by medusa to home & garden (3 comments total)

The CMHC (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.) has a fairly good set of basic information on this subject. Their renovation fact sheet cover a number of issues that might come up in basement renovations in particular, though some of the energy efficiency stuff might not be applicable if you live in warmer climes.
posted by ssg at 7:26 PM on April 30

eye candy: Candice Olson has made lots of basements become beautiful.
posted by auntbunny at 9:56 PM on April 30

not basement specific, but the 10k kitchen remodel has some GREAT basic remodeling info (including design, planning, etc.). he's also got some links to other helpful blogs. toolmonger has some good ideas about tools, the people who use them, and what they use them for. (comments section is good.) apartment therapy can give you some ideas of what to do with the space. especially check out some of their links (i think you have to click on one of the articles & get to an inside page for the links to show.) they have great one for design and some to how-to's like this old house and its subsites shelter life and shelteriffic.) yeah ... lots of these are about *buying* things, but they give you some good design ideas.
posted by msconduct at 8:14 AM on May 1