Remodeling a Basement: Expert Advice from Start to Finish (Taunton's Build Like a Pro)

I am in the middle of remodeling the basement in our new home. While I have purchased about a half a dozen books on the subject, this is without a doubt the best. The author covers every angle of remodeling from planning to painting and the color photographs are wonderful! Just one word of caution, the book seems geared more for those with newer homes. If your basement is really old, or a total disaster, I would recommend looking elsewhere for advice. For newer homes, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Best of luck with your project!

Tons of full color photographs and drawings, and well-written text make this book a must-read for the amateur home-improver. This book isn't an exhaustive guide to remodeling, but it covers most of everything you'd need to know. For some specifics, like plumbing and electrical, it may be necessary to get a more detailed book on those subjects, if you're going to do that work yourself. Still, a great book, I'm already relying on it to do my own basement remodel.

This book has the best, most detailed guide to remodeling your basement. This is more construction guidance than design, but there is good design info as well. The book has OUTSTANDING guidance on actually taking the project on and getting it finished. The author teaches a class in basement remodeling, and this experience has clearly provided him with a wealth of ideas on how to guide the novice to intermediate builder. If you are going to do the work, you have to have this book.

I've been slowly remodeling and fixing up all aspects of our house for the last ten years, and when my wife recently wanted to remodel our basement I did a lot of research into various books on the subject. This is by far the best of the bunch, and arguably the best home-owners how-to book I've ever come across. It's a shame the author doesn't have an entire line covering all aspects of home remodeling. The treatment of the subject and necessary details is in-depth, but broken down and presented in such a way that anyone with a modicum of common sense can understand and apply it to their own basement. I've found that many of the tricks of the trade he gives are also applicable to projects spanning other parts of the house, making this a great book for anyone interested in remodeling any part of their home. I would have liked to see an entire chapter on sound proofing your basement (I have three hellions who keep us up until late hours of the night with their shenanigans downstairs), but this is a very minor, and personal, gripe. The plethora of pictures and diagrams are great, as are the "Pro Tips", which cover a lot of things missed by similar books on the subject. My basement turned out beautifully, it's too bad I can't post pictures here. Good luck with your own projects.

This book covers everything from assessing your current basement, planning and the actual work. I'm just a regular home-owner handyman (non-professional) and I feel like I'm ready to tackle the project. One thing that was especially helpful was the Pro Tips. On almost all the pages, there's a tip that you may or may not have thought about. For the work, it goes over the basic steps to accomplishing the project (i.e. electrical, plumbing, drywall). If you have a decent amount of handyman inside you, this book will definitely enable you to finish or remodel a basement.