You’re looking to create a bedroom in the basement, whether you like it or not. Sure, it’s going to be more chilly than the rest of the house, but for a bedroom that could be a good thing. Regardless of the reason for having your bedroom in the basement, you’re looking for some ideas to make the space more liveable. Try some of these basement bedroom ideas to get started.
1) DIY Stone Nightstand
Your basement is inherently industrial-themed. You finished the basement, insulating it against the cold, adding drywall and floors, and painting the room, but it still feels like a basement. Add some natural furniture, like this stone-topped side table. The side table is topped with white marble, but you can use the instructions to make one out of a stone you like. This combats the industrial feel with a bit of nature, and you can customize a nightstand with your choice of wood and stone.
2) Natural Wallpaper
A basement bedroom probably has little lighting, and it can quickly become bleak and depressing. Bring in elements of nature to make the room feel more natural and less like living in a warehouse. This peel and stick wallpaper from Walmart has a forest pattern, with trees and an owl on it. The wallpaper is light blue with trees that look sketched on. The wallpaper is designed to go on painted surfaces, so make sure to paint the wall first.
3) DIY Lamps
Your basement bedroom probably doesn’t have a lot of light. You might have a couple of short windows near the ceiling, or one tall window if you have a walkout basement. The lack of windows means you need to find ways to simulate natural light. To imitate natural light, you’ll need to light the room from multiple angles with different types of lighting. Put a lamp at your bedside, and in one or two other places. This video shows how to make a natural-looking lamp to create natural light and combat the hemmed-in feeling of a basement room.
4) DIY Painted Floors
When you finish your basement, you’ll have to pick the best flooring to go over concrete, but you don’t want to put the flooring directly on the unfinished floor. Before you put the flooring down, seal the floor with concrete paint using the directions in this article. If you have to go through an unfinished basement to get to the room, you can also paint those areas, so you or your guest don’t have to walk on unfinished floors to go to bed.
5) Attached Bathroom
If you live in a basement apartment, space is probably at a premium, but if your bedroom is in a larger house, you’ll have some space to work with. Because the bedroom is in a basement, it’s further from conveniences such as bathrooms and the kitchen. Rather than force yourself or a guest to walk upstairs to use the restroom at night, add a bathroom to your basement bedroom. Read this article to learn a bit more about how to plan your attached bathroom.
6) Industrial Style Shelves
You don’t have to try and hide the fact that your room is in a basement. If you like the idea of a basement bedroom, but still need to figure out how to make it work, try adding industrial-style shelves, These show off the fact that you’re in a basement, but you still have the finished space and conveniences of a normal bedroom. These shelf brackets look like pipes drilled into the wall, and are perfect for shelving in an industrial-style room.
7) DIY Concrete Pendant Light Fixture
If you’ve chosen to embrace the industrial theme that comes with living in a basement, you’ll need to light the room well. You probably can’t let in much natural light, but you can use lights to mimic it. Use lamps, pendant lights, and recessed lights as needed to add light from more than one angle. This concrete pendant light will fit an industrial theme, and these instructions make it reasonably simple to make. Since these fixtures direct light downward, you should use them to light small areas, such as over a desk, or above your bed for nighttime reading.
8) DIY Bamboo Dividing Wall
If you’ve claimed a large area for your basement bedroom, you’ll want to visually divide up space. While a wide-open space is fun to have, you may wish for some cozy spaces, as well. Watch this video to learn how to make a bamboo dividing wall. This is a beautiful way to divide up your bedroom space visually without building a permanent wall. You can move this partition any time you rearrange your furniture so that it won’t feel old and stale, and it’s a beautiful way to bring nature into a basement.
9) Recessed Lights
Since your basement probably doesn’t have a lot of natural light, you’ll need plenty of artificial light. Hanging a lot of lights can get cluttered, so cheap recessed lights may be your best option. These lights are recessed so that you won’t hit your head if the room has a low ceiling, and they’re cheap enough that you can use as many as you need to light the room. If you don’t need all twelve lights, you can use them when you finish other basement rooms.
10) Mirrored Room Divider
If there’s a lot of space in your basement, you might have a large bedroom. You’ll need to divide up the bedroom space, but if you don’t have a lot of light coming in from windows, you don’t want to risk blocking that small amount of light. This mirrored divider will divide up space in your room, but it’ll also reflect light to brighten the room. Put mirrors on the walls around it to reflect light on the side of the partition that’s opposite the windows.
11) DIY Keep Moisture Out
If you’re finishing the basement bedroom yourself, your primary concern will be keeping moisture out. In this article, experts describe how to finish a basement wall without creating moisture problems in the new room. The most critical thing you’ll need to do is build the wall so that it’s not touching the masonry. In this tutorial, the framing should sit half an inch away from the foundation wall. Ideally, you want to build your wall an inch away from the basement wall, so it doesn’t pick up any mixture from the cold concrete.
12) Wall Colors
A basement has unique lighting effects that aren’t a concern in most bedrooms. Instead of picking a favorite color, pick a paint color that will brighten the room in terms of both adding more light and making the room more cheerful. Light colors that don’t match the ceiling work best, so if you have a white ceiling, you can do a light cream like this paint from Amazon, or cheerful light yellow or tranquil blue.
13) Meet Code
One thing many homeowners don’t consider when remodeling is building codes. This code isn’t just for contractors; it’s advice to help you design your home properly. Read this article to learn about some of the codes, such as egress window code, and the practical reasons for them. Your basement bedroom needs a window big enough to climb through in an emergency, so if you have a walkout basement, make sure to put the room against a wall with exterior framing. This way, you can add a window more easily.
14) Dehumidifier
Basements can be damp and humid places. Even if there aren’t any leaks, and you’ve finished the basement properly so that there’s no moisture condensing on your drywall, you could get mildew if the air is too wet. You’ll have to use your judgment to decide whether you need one, but a dehumidifier is an effective way to pull moisture out of the air and keep mold and mildew from becoming a problem in your bedroom.
15) DIY Soundproofing
Soundproofing might be the most important thing you can do in a basement bedroom, next to taking measures to avoid mold and mildew. While soundproofing may sound extreme, the basement bedroom is at the lowest point in the house. Without soundproof ceilings, you’ll hear every footstep when a family member or roommate gets up for a midnight snack. Rather than be kept awake by footsteps echoing through the ceiling, use one of the cheap soundproofing methods from this video. Insulating the ceiling is always a good soundproofing choice because the insulation will also help keep everyone warm.
16) Light Strings
If you don’t have a lot of natural light in your basement room, try setting up light strings like the ones in the picture. You can put them behind other decorations or inside bottles, or string them anywhere around the room. Lighting from multiple angles creates a more natural-feeling light, and the light will be softer than lighting with one very bright ceiling light. You can get light strings with a remote, so you can turn them off at night like you do your main lights.
17) Fake Windows
If you can’t have windows in your bedroom, or if you have to settle for a single small window, you can still have a view and feel like you have windows. This fake window from Amazon gives you a view of the mountains, or you can pick from several views. While it won’t let in light, it’ll make the room more cheerful. The fake windows look surprisingly realistic, and you can hang gossamer curtains around them to make them look more real.
18) Exercise Area
One advantage of having a basement bedroom is that you can make as much noise as you want, and nobody will hear. Well, that might be an exaggeration, but you can still get away with a lot of noise. This makes it a great place to set up a yoga or exercise area, since you can jump, hop, and skip, and nobody downstairs will complain. Just make sure to have a mat underneath you, since even a finished basement floor will flex less and be harder on your feet than an upstairs room.
19) Light-Up Art
Your basement bedroom probably has limited light, and you’ve added many light fixtures in different styles to fix that. While light fixtures will provide most of your light, you can find creative ways to add small amounts of light here and there. One way to do this is to get artwork that lights up from the back, like the decoration in this picture. While the image doesn’t show a basement bedroom, you can still see the soft glow of the art piece, and imagine how it would improve a dark or dull basement bedroom.
20) White Ceilings
White is the most reflective color, as it doesn’t absorb any light. This makes it an excellent choice for a basement ceiling because it’ll make the most of any light that comes in through windows. If you have a low basement ceiling, it’ll also make the ceiling seem higher and make your bedroom less claustrophobic. Use this white ceiling paint from The Home Depot for a light and reflective ceiling that will be comfortable to sleep under.
21) Full-Length Curtains
It’s unlikely that you have full-length windows in your basement bedroom, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make it look like you do. Hang these curtains in your room to make it look like the room has a window. You can even put light panels behind them to mimic the look of sun streaming through a window. Laptop screens can make effective light panels, as can LED light strips. If you add lights behind your curtains, make sure you have a remote to turn them off at night.
What have you done to improve your basement bedroom? Do you have any ideas we didn’t think of? Let us know in the comments below!
