A Basement Development Journey

26. General Finishing

Pretty much the first thing we get started on when finishing a basement, are the window boxes. When enclosing a window opening, we always use Medex, which is a moisture resistant, paint grade MDF. Using a moisture resistant product around windows is critical for the longevity of the finish, as this area can often see moisture from condensation. Being that we use very high-quality windows, condensation is unlikely, but it’s good practice to use a moisture and mould resilient product in these areas. 

For trim, we installed 4” flat stock baseboard and 2 ½” flat stock door and window casing. All the doors were outfitted with matte black hardware and the door stops from Amazon compliment them nicely. 

The bathroom accessories such as towel bars, plumbing fixtures, and mirror are also finished in matte black. The flat stock trim and black hardware/accessories is very popular in recent years and helps to establish a modern finish. We installed a floating, two drawer cabinet in grey from IKEA, which ended up being our inspiration for all the trim paint. Cabinets above the laundry appliances keep this room neat and tidy, and the turquoise colour is perfect for this basement. 

The laundry room ceiling tile is a product from Home Depot called Embassy Ceilings which takes a little longer than traditional grid ceiling systems to install, but looks great! We also built the door for the electrical panel, and a custom angled door for the crawl space access.

27. Special Finishing Features

Adding all the special finishing features in this Edmonton basement renovation was where we really got to have some fun and exercise our creativity! First, we made a custom handrail out of black iron gas pipe. Yes, we’ve all seen this before, but what we did different was had it all powder coated. It looks fantastic. We kept within building code guidelines regarding distance from the wall and height off the stairs to ensure safety. We also had all the railing pieces cut and threaded, so we were able to line our fastening points to wall studs.

The inspiration for the powder coating was that of a piece of art made of pennies and epoxy, by yours truly.

We also built a desk for this client in her new home office and accented it with the same pipe and powder coating theme.

With the coolness of the grey and turquoise paint and tile, we wanted to add some warmth with natural wood accents, so we decorated a lot of this basement with acacia countertop slabs. We incorporated this element above the laundry appliances, the desktop, cap on the pony wall at the bottom of the stairs, and window aprons.

For the window stools (ledges), we had some beautiful dark grey quartz cut. We kept with the 45-degree corners and chamfers for this feature. It really pulls the grey from the trim and vanity all together resulting in a gorgeous, finished window unit.

Following the contour of the 45-degree angled wall in the bedroom, we built a custom shelving system with chamfered edges. This type of built-in shelving system is a little more complicated to achieve an extremely tight fit. Sometimes the cuts were at 89.7 degrees and sometimes they were 90.2 degrees. To have a perfect fit, every shelf end needs to be measured individually, resulting in a gap-free shelving unit.

29. Handrail & Desk

The client had one request for this handrail – no wood. We’re no stranger to getting creative with special requests, so coming up with an interesting handrail solution was a lot of fun. I provided a few options including threaded pipe, which she loved. In hindsight, we should have had this decision figured out earlier in the design process and could have installed backing during the framing process (again, this is where a good interior designer is very helpful). Not having backing in the wall and only studs to rely on, complicated things. We had to get all the sections of pipe carefully measured, cut and threaded to have our wall flanges line up with the studs once assembled. This was a measure thrice, cut once situation. Once everything was cut and threaded, a dry assembly was conducted, and it all lined up.

The desk involved a similar process, but only for the legs which were a much simpler measuring process. Everything was delivered to the powder coating shop and the finished result is gorgeous. Keeping with the acacia theme, we built a mitred desktop with chamfered edges, and of course cut the corners off at 45-degrees.

30. Plumbing & Electrical Final

Now that paint was finished, it was time to get the plumbers and electricians back in to finish. This step was simply fixtures such as shower trim, toilet, faucets, cover plates for switches and receptacles, and LED lights in the ceilings. As mentioned before, we went with matte black fixtures which match the tile trim, powder coated fittings, door hardware and door stops. The lighting was 3000K and there were multiple dimmers throughout. Then an electrical final inspection and another green sticker.

31. Paint Touch-ups

Before touch-ups, we always go through the entire project with a roll of tape and mark out deficiencies that we want addressed. These could be anything from a spot that got missed to the odd chunk of dried paint that got mixed into the paint. This basement was a straightforward touch-up process and I think our painter was in and out within a few hours.

32. Final Building Inspection