Adding a kitchen and laundry room to your basement is one of the best ways to compete with today’s homes that feature a family room that adjoins to the kitchen. Additional benefits include separate space for teens, college students, live ins, the elderly and rental income.

Finishing your basement is a very cost effective way of adding living space to your home. At the same time, you'll be creating a new living space that can accommodate your changing needs and possibly supplement your income.



Most home owners use the existing rough plumbing and space in the basement to add a bathroom with a shower/tub. Then it’s a matter of framing the space, adding insulation and creating a bedroom and recreation room. They often overlook the benefits of adding a kitchen that adjoins that new recreation room in the basement. There are a number of reasons why this makes complete sense when you think of how you will use the finished space.

Family Rooms vs Basement Recreation Room
As we said before, the main level of your home may not have a family room and an adjoining ktichen, so in a sense the recreation room and basement kitchen serve that purpose.

Just consider how you will use your finished basement. You’ll watch television, listen to music, play video or table games or entertain guests. You will also snack on a variety of foods and beverages. Without a basement kitchen, you will have to carry food, beverages, ice, and dishes up and down the stairs. That gets very old and tiresome quickly. After a while, the idea of using the recreation room and bring in food and drink loses its appeal.

Be Flexible
Don’t despair if you don’t use that recreation room as you intended. Be flexible. A space can be defined any way you wish and that recreation room might be used as a bedroom. By adding a basement kitchen along with your other rooms, you have created essentially an apartment for that mature and independent teen who is now attending college. If that’s not in the cards, then consider using the space for your home office or for your live in maid or Au Pair. Last but not least, consider renting out your space to visitors or on a monthly basis and supplementing your income to the tune of $1,000-1,200 per month. You will have to check out local zoning ordinances before you do, but generally you can do this if you are discrete.

What we did
We actually converted a very ugly basement into a functional kitchen and laundry room, bedroom, full bathroom, recreation room and storage room. In the kitchen, we used inexpensive stock natural maple cabinets from American Woodmark’s Potomac Series that we purchased from a Lowes Home Improvement Center. They also come in white and oak. We preferred them because they come already assembled. The cabinet faces are solid wood, while the sides and back are engineered wood and MDF.

To save even more money, consider recycling your old cabinets that are going to be replaced in your main floor kitchen. Just make sure that you use tender loving care when you remove them from the walls. Then lightly sand them and paint them.