Banished to the Basement

The basement has been a little controversial. We both agree we want one, but its purpose has been in dispute. Liane wants all of my "man room" stuff in the basement, which primarily amounts to a studio/office and home theater (nothing elaborate). Her reasoning for this is due to our thermomic incompatibility: she runs cold and I run hot. In our current house my space has been in the loft, which I really like, except it often gets warmer than the rest of the house. She's sometimes on the ground floor freezing while I'm in the loft burning up. So if I am in the basement it will be easy to keep me cool, while she can be comfortable upstairs. Logical enough I guess, but I'll really miss the overview of the house and the neighborhood I have from my loft. I've argued that with dual HVAC systems the temperature variation can be largely managed, but she isn't buying...so to the basement I go...

The plans for the basement are still in flux. Aside from the layout still changing, we don't know how much of it we want to finish. All to be determined as we zero in on other details. There are two main demands I have if I am to be banished to the lower chambers:

1) The basement must be walkout style. This has less to do with me needing to get outside from the basement and more to do with the overall feel of it. Walkouts are decidedly less cave-like than even daylight basements.

2) Noise from above must be minimized. I hate hearing the impact noise of people walking around upstairs when I'm in a basement. I still have to determine the best way to accomplish this, but suspect it will be some combination of material on the floor above and isolation on the joists below. Fortunately I have some access to a world renowned acoustician and studio designer in Russ Berger to help figure out the most practical way to tackle it. Also, this is one reason why the bedrooms changed ends. I did not under any circumstances want my studio space near the kitchen above, and likewise I did not want any noise I might be making in the studio to disturb Liane while sleeping. So we put the master bedroom and kitchen at the same end of the house, and will put the studio below at the opposite end. (Of course there are other factors that impacted the placement of the bedrooms that have been covered in prior posts.)