Four thousand two hundred square feet. One of the bookshelves is a door.
A whole lower level finished under one contract — two bedrooms with en-suites, a theatre behind barn doors, a wet bar under stone arches, a gym, and a hidden storage room you cannot find from the room it opens off.
Finishing 4,200 square feet is not a bigger version of finishing one thousand.
A walk-out lower level, framed and empty, under an occupied house. The contract finished all of it at once — eight rooms plus a thirty-four foot hallway — rather than in the phases most basements of this size get broken into.
Scale changes the problem. At this size the mechanical load stops being an afterthought: the basement needed its own thermostats, its own water heating, and drains that were not where the new rooms wanted them. Three of those answers are underneath the finished floor, and one of them meant breaking the slab. The visible work — stone, reclaimed timber, knotty alder — sits on top of decisions that were made before any of it was ordered.
- 1,200 sq ft family room with a work-out area, under false beams and on stone-clad posts
- 450 sq ft media room with its own storage closet
- 150 sq ft wet bar with pantry, under stone arches opening to the theatre
- 230 sq ft bedroom with attached three-quarter bath and walk-in closet
- 275 sq ft bedroom with attached full bath and walk-in closet
- 100 sq ft hidden storage room, entered through a bookshelf
- 500 sq ft finished storage room, powder room, and a 34 ft hallway of built-in stain-grade shelving
Eight and a half months, contract to final inspection.
258 days from the executed contract to the final building inspection. Every marker sits at its true position on that span.
The stage payments cluster in the first four months — framing, rough electrical, rough plumbing, rough HVAC, windows, insulation and drywall all cleared by January. The remaining five months are stone and reclaimed millwork — including the additional stone agreed by change order in May 2022 — which is the part that cannot be rushed and the part a homeowner actually sees. The finish took longer than the build.
Reclaimed boxcar countertops, knotty alder, and stone that carries itself.
150 square feet of wet bar with a pantry behind it. The countertops were fabricated from reclaimed boxcar decking — 108 square feet of it — and the wall behind the bar is 300 square feet of barn wood on plywood backing.
450 square feet of media room, on a riser that moved.
Tiered seating on a framed riser, walls in stone and reclaimed timber, entered through a pair of reclaimed barn doors. The riser was relocated under Change Order 1 once the sightlines were checked against the finished screen position.
1,200 square feet under false beams, with the gym at one end of it.
The largest room in the contract, opening to grade through the walk-out. 98 lineal feet of false beam across the ceiling, stone-clad posts, and 243 square feet of rubber tile where the work-out area sits.
Two bedrooms, two en-suites, and a powder room built around a barrel.
Both bedrooms have an attached bath and a walk-in closet. Both needed a new window cut into the existing exterior wall before either could legally be called a bedroom.
Reclaimed boxcar, stone arches and knotty alder throughout.
Every quantity above is taken from the executed contract and its unit-price estimate for this project.
The soil decides more of this than the drawings do.
Douglas County sits on some of the most expansive soil on the Front Range. That single fact drives the two requirements that catch out-of-state contractors and unpermitted basement finishes here.
Basement walls float. Interior non-bearing walls in a Front Range basement are built with a gap at the top and fastened so the slab can rise and fall underneath them without loading the framing. This is not a detail you add later — it changes how every wall in the basement is framed, and an inspector will look for it.
Below-grade bedrooms need their own way out. A finished basement room only counts as a bedroom if it has an emergency escape and rescue opening. On this project that meant cutting two new openings in an existing stucco exterior wall and framing 5‑0 x 5‑0 casement windows into them. A basement finish that quietly calls a windowless room a bedroom is a problem at resale, at appraisal, and in an emergency.
This project was permitted and closed out on a final building inspection, which was the last contractual milestone before the balance was invoiced in June 2022.
Basement finishing questions we get asked.
Can a basement this size be finished under one contract?
Yes. This one was 4,200 square feet — eight rooms plus a thirty-four foot hallway — finished under a single executed contract with one crew and a stage payment schedule rather than in separate phases. Phasing a basement usually costs more, because trades come back to the same room twice.
Does a basement bedroom need its own window?
Yes. A below-grade room cannot be permitted as a bedroom without an emergency escape and rescue opening. On this project two new casement windows were framed into the existing exterior wall and the stucco patched around them. If your basement plan includes bedrooms, budget for the openings before you budget for the finishes.
Why do basement walls in Colorado have to float?
Because the soil under the slab expands and contracts with moisture. A non-bearing wall is built so the slab can move underneath it without pushing up into the framing — pressure-treated sole plate glued down, and spiked at intervals rather than fixed hard. 5,200 square feet of wall on this job was framed that way. A wall that is fixed rigidly to a moving slab cracks the drywall above it.
Can you move a drain that is already in the slab?
Yes, and on this project we did — 25 lineal feet of new below-ground waste line, which meant breaking the concrete floor, running the drain and replacing the slab. It is done first, before framing. If a bathroom or wet bar is not where the existing plumbing is, this is the work that makes it possible.
Can the basement be heated and cooled separately from the rest of the house?
Often, without new equipment. Here a baffle system was installed on the existing furnaces and new ducting run, so the finished lower level runs on its own thermostats. Whether that works depends on the capacity you already have — it is checked before it is promised.
Can you build a hidden storage room into a basement finish?
Yes. This one is 100 square feet with a steel flush door, roughed for waste and supply, and entered through a built-in bookshelf fitted with hidden door hardware. It has to be designed in at framing — the wall, the door frame and the concealed hardware are all decided before drywall.
How long does a basement of this size take?
This one ran 258 days — about eight and a half months — from executed contract to final building inspection. The rough trades and drywall cleared inside the first four months. The remaining five were stone and reclaimed millwork, which is the slow part on any job with this much custom finish in it.
Tell us what is down there now. We will tell you what it can be.
Ceiling height, where the existing drains run, what your furnace has left in it, and whether the rooms you want can have windows — those four answers decide what a basement can become, and they are worth knowing before anyone draws anything.
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Tell us the size of the space and what you are picturing down there. We come back with what it will actually take.
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