Basement finishing in Winfield, PA
A basement for family, with a few clever details along the way.
New grandparents in Winfield wanted room for the family to visit. Along the way: a radon pipe that had to move, a litter box that disappeared under the stairs, and a treadmill that changed how we wire basements.
Our homeowners were new to the Winfield area and had recently become grandparents. They wanted to finish their basement to give the family some extra room, particularly when their granddaughter came to visit.
We walked the space together, talked about how they wanted to use it, and put together a plan that made sense for the house. The goal was a comfortable finished living area that would give them more flexibility as the family grew. As with most basements, the decisions that mattered most were the ones you can’t see in the finished room.
Solving a problem with the radon system.
One of the first challenges was the existing radon mitigation pipe. It ran right through where we wanted to build a finished wall. Leave it there and we had two options: an awkward bump-out around the pipe, or push the whole wall farther into the room to hide it. The bump-out would have looked out of place. Moving the wall would have given up usable square footage for no good reason.
The better answer was to relocate the pipe. Finding a reputable radon contractor willing to take on that small a job turned out to be harder than we expected, but we found one, and the walls went where they belonged.
Nobody looking at the finished basement would ever know. That’s the point.
A better place for the litter box.
The low space under the basement stairs wasn’t much use for storage or living, but it turned out to be the right spot for the family’s litter box. We built a concealed area under the stairs with a small cat entrance cut into the half wall, so the cat can come and go without the box sitting out in the finished room. A removable access door inside the adjacent closet lets the homeowners reach in to clean it.
It’s a small feature, and one of my favorites from this project. An awkward space got a job, and the finished room stayed finished.
The treadmill that changed how we wire basements.
Not everything went perfectly. After the basement was finished, the homeowners’ treadmill drew enough power to trip the breaker when other equipment was running on the same circuit. The circuit hadn’t been planned for it, and that was on us to fix.
We brought our electrician back to run a new wire and a dedicated circuit with its own breaker. That solved it. It also taught us something: today, when a basement has a workout room or big exercise equipment, dedicated circuits are part of the plan from the start. The next basement we did in Lewisburg got a subpanel and dedicated circuits to the exercise room before the walls closed.
Sometimes you learn something on one project that makes the next one better.
The homeowners got the living space they wanted for their family, and a few details that make the basement work better day to day. We kept the floor space by moving the radon pipe, gave the space under the stairs a purpose, and fixed the electrical when it showed up.
Those are the details that separate a basement that looks finished from one that’s been thought through. And what matters most is that they have a place to enjoy with their granddaughter for years to come.
“Mike Smego & his crew did a great job finishing out our basement! After a walk through and sitting down to talk about what we wanted, Mike designed the plans. He was very flexible with decisions that were made throughout the job. His attention to details, finishing touches and making sure that it was all done right made the experience a very good one. Our basement looks great and we’re very pleased with how it turned out! Mike and his crew, Richard and Garrett, were very professional and polite; we highly recommend Smego Construction and plan to have him work on our next project.”
Let’s see if this makes sense.
Fifteen minutes on the phone. You’ll have a realistic range before we hang up — and if we’re not the right people for it, I’ll tell you.