Sunday, November 22, 2015

Basement Plans

So, as evidenced by my previous posts, we are getting the finished basement in our new home.  What irks me about Ryan Homes' finished basement jobs is that they typically only finish about HALF of the basement (sometimes less) and leave you with a crap-load of (what seems like) unnecessary storage space.  Granted, some unfinished storage space is desirable, but I would say a ratio like 75% finished, 25% unfinished would still yield plenty of storage space while giving you a bit more living space too.

To make things worse in our case, with the Milan plan, the basement situation is aggravated by the awkward design.  They just put things in weird positions such that it hinders the expansion of the basement.  A perfect example of this is that they put your bathroom (or bathroom rough-ins) right in the middle of the floor plan!  Basically, if you ever want to finish the unfinished (or "storage") space, you'll find that you either can't, or you'll have to move the bathroom (costly), or you'll just have to deal with the bathroom being right in the middle of your open space (which would look really weird IMHO).

To demonstrate what I am saying, take a look at these unmodified basement plans for the Milan:
See, if you add the bathroom as it's designed in these plans, you've basically cut yourself off from finishing the "unfinished" space to the right of the bathroom.  And even if you elect the finished "exercise" room, it's still awkward because you have that slight hall that goes past the bathroom to get into the exercise room and then that hall dead-ends into a doorway into the "unfinished" space.  Weird.

So, after being pretty unhappy with the "out-of-the-box" plan, I decided to make some changes.  Take a look:

Ryan Homes Milan Basement Plan


This is the compartmentalized design that I am going to hand to my project manager.  I expect for them to push back a bit, but the ONLY thing I really need them to do is to move our bathroom rough-ins.  They don't have to finish the rest of the storage space - I don't expect that at all.  I expect them to wall it all up according to their plan and I will change the configuration later the way I want.  But, you see what just moving the bathroom can do for this layout????  In this design, I have everything placed (including our Guardian equipment) according to how I am planning to change the wall configurations in the future.

On a more personal note, I am a bit let down by Ryan Homes in the basement (and bang for your buck) world.  On every basement design that I've seen for them, they only give you a small area as "finished" then charge you extra for any extra finishing you get (e.g. media or exercise room).  That's very convenient for them.  Personally, I think they should finishing those spaces with the pretty high price they are charging to get the finished basement.  Beyond that, I don't like the fact that they don't seem to give you any leeway to customize anything in the basement (wall configuration, etc.) and, from what I've seen so far, they're pretty resistant to any changes that you do propose.

At any rate, I plan to do whatever it takes to get that bathroom moved....... don't care if I have to go run around the job site naked every day until they give in!  :)

10 comments:

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  2. Just built my house. Definitely much less luxurious but I was disappointed in the ability to move or change floor plans even slightly. One thing about large scale contractors that I don't like. Also they didn't give much options to have a company like Guardian or even myself to come in and pre-wire the home. Oh well, I have plenty of attic and crawlspace access.

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    1. Agree on your point about them being d*cks about modifying your structural floor plan. At any rate, congratulations on your new home man!

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  3. We tried to move the rough in, good luck. It won't happen. They also probably won't entertain any of your basement modifications either. Cant hurt to ask though.

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    1. The only thing I need them entertain is moving the bathroom rough-ins. Everything is either placed according to their own plan or put on a wall that already exists/won't be changed in the future. I plan on doing all the other mods myself which is mainly just wall configuration and finishing the bathroom. But you're right, they may not agree to moving the rough-ins. But I'm going to fight one hell of a battle to get them to do so (after all, I want the rough-ins moved to where the wet bar is in their plans so there must be SOME kind of plumbing going to that spot in their plans). If they won't do it, then I guess we'll have to sacrifice the bathroom because I won't sacrifice the rest of the basement, that's for sure.

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  4. Love the interior design configuration you came up with for the basement. It functions much better than the original plan. You may have to submit a custom request to shift the location which is ridiculous because you have to pay for the rough in and the relocation which may result in an additional fee. At the end of the day you just have to pay for what you want and be happy rhat you went for your request.

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  5. Well we had our pre-construction meeting yesterday and they DID accept our request to move the basement bath rough-ins. It wasn't a resounding "YES" like I wanted, but I gave them the plan I drew up and our PM made a copy of it for my file and basically said he was pretty confident he could get it done (he even offered to wall in the bathroom completely). Mind you, when I asked about this, right off the bat he said NO. But I called him out on the why. I had done my research into the Milan so I was prepared to rebuttal the "no, because it's not part of the structural plan" answer. Obviously, since the plan allows for an optional wet bar in the same space, then they have the ability to run plumbing to that location. After some back and forth (with me having to explain my entire plans for the basement in detail and how it all hinged on this bathroom decision) our PM saw where I was coming from and accepted the request. HOPEFULLY, this will be a done deal without further issue. I'll keep ya'll posted.

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  6. By the way, I'll post the full details on our pre-con meeting tonight in a separate blog :)

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  8. Hey do you have photo of your basement I like your idea on the basement I wanna ask about this

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