If you’re thinking of adding a playroom to your house, putting it in the basement is a great idea. Basements are the perfect spots for a playroom because they are isolated, allowing for a dedicated play space without interfering with the other areas of the home. Whether you are looking to build a playroom for your young children, older children, or even for yourself, you’ve come to the right place. Check out our list of some great basement playroom ideas.
1) Color Choice
If you are designing a playroom for your younger kids, color is a very important consideration. Bright colors are usually best for young children. Your color scheme can be used to tie everything together, from wall color to the colors of your floors and shelves. There is even a whole area of psychology dedicated to the best colors to decorate a child’s room. Here’s an article to get you started.
2) Kids Playroom Wall Decor
While we’re discussing color, let’s talk about wall decor. Wall decor is another great way to liven up your child’s playroom and add color. Decal stickers with words, letters, or paint splatters can be purchased in a multitude of colors and designs. Signs can also be purchased to announce the purpose of the room. The options with wall decor are limitless.
3) Pre-Built Jungle Gym
Installing an indoor jungle gym in your basement playroom is a great way to help kids stay active when it is too cold or too wet outside. Pre-built jungle gyms come in many styles, from stand alone gyms to units designed to attach to a wall or ceiling. You also have a wide variety of colors to choose from, so it should not be too hard to match the color scheme of your playroom.
4) DIY Indoor Playground
If you are adept at building and have the proper tools, you can always design and build your own jungle gym or playground in your basement. This will give you the most options to be creative with the space you are using. You can make it multilevel and create secret hideaway areas for your kids to climb around. To learn how the owners build the indoor playground above, click here.
5) Indoor Swing
If you do not have enough space for a whole indoor playground, you can always hang a swing from the ceiling. This is pretty easy to do if your basement ceiling is unfinished, and not much harder if you have a finished ceiling. Swings can be purchased premade, or you can build one yourself like the one pictured above.
6) Indoor Rock Climbing Wall
Adding an indoor rock climbing wall to your basement is another great way to keep your kids active while indoors. Of course, an indoor rock climbing wall can be good for an adult playroom as well. You can make your rock climbing wall as simple or as complex as you like. The one pictured above is an easy install. Go here to learn how to do it yourself.
7) DIY Ball Pit
Another easy DIY project is to build your own ball pit. Ball pits are a great place for children to play. The balls can be purchased in a single color or multicolored to fit your design scheme. There are several DIY articles on how to build your own Ball Pit. There’s even a Ball Pit Calculator to make sure you purchase the exact amount of materials you’ll need.
8) Floor Mats
Since your basement floor is most likely concrete, you will want to include padded flooring or floor mats for safety reasons, especially if you are planning a more active play area for your kids. These can be found in many different colors and styles. Interlocking tiles will give you the most flexibility, allowing you to pad as much or as little of the floor as needed.
9) Lego Corner
Kids love Legos, so another great idea for a basement playroom is to include a Lego corner. You can build your own lego table cheap and easy with an Ikea table and Lego base plates. Storage bins will keep the Legos sorted and organized, and if you include shelves, your child will have a place to display his or her Lego creations.
10) Kids Stage/Dress up Closet
If your kid loves to play dress up and wants to dance, sing, or act; a kids stage and dress up closet will be a great playroom idea. This can simply be a curtained off corner in your basement, or you can build a raised platform. The one pictured here is a very easy DIY project with the right tools.
11) Craft Corner
Who gets to define play? Craft projects, drawing, and coloring are activities that many kids consider part of playtime. If your child is one of these, then a craft corner will be a great addition for your playroom. Be sure to include a flat table and chair where your child can work and plenty of shelves to store craft supplies. Here’s an article about how the homeowner created the craft area above.
12) Pretend Play Market
If your child is an up and coming business mogul, build him or her a pretend play market in your basement playroom. Instructions on how to build the one above can be found here. Of course, you can plan your design around any theme that your child loves. It does not have to be a food market. Perhaps a coffee shop? Or a tiny restaurant?
13) Board Game Room
If your children are getting older, then it might be time to change their jungle gym or lego corner into a board game room. Board gaming is a great activity for the whole family to participate in. With the new European designed board games, it has gone beyond Monopoly and Risk. Click here to learn how to convert a regular table into the boardgaming table pictured above
14) Pool Table
Another great idea for a basement playroom for older children and adults is to purchase a pool table. Pool tables are a gathering place for entertaining guests as well. There are several design choices and sizes, so a pool table can be purchased to fit almost any decor and any size basement playroom.
15) Dart Board Wall
If you are planning on adding a pool table and you have space, why not dedicate a wall to a dart board? You can purchase a wall protector or hang a framed in wood box as pictured above to protect your wall from any errant darts. Dart board sets come in a variety of designs and styles so finding one to fit in to your playroom design should not be too difficult.
16) Foosball Table
If you don’t have enough space for a pool table, then another option is a foosball table. These can be purchased in a lot of places and in a lot of colors and designs. If you are looking for a DIY project and you want to save a little money, it’s also possible to build your own foosball table. Here’s an article with step by step instructions and downloadable PDFs to do just that.
17) Air Hockey Table
Perhaps air hockey is more your thing? As with pool tables, dart boards, and foosball tables, you can purchase an Air Hockey table almost anywhere and in almost any color or design you like. Like foosball tables, these take up less room than a pool table and come in many sizes. Yes, you can even build your own if you are so inclined!
18) Video Game Room
Basements make a great place to set up a video game room. Since basement lighting is typically dimmer with less natural light streaming in, you’ll be able to strike the perfect mood for a video game room. To achieve the neon glow accomplished here, you’ll need a lot of multicolored LED light strips. These can be bought in strips of various length and can be hung almost anywhere.
19) Gaming Chair
If the basement video gaming room is your plan, you’ll need to purchase comfortable gaming chairs. There are so many different types of gaming chairs available from full recliners to rolling office chairs, so it shouldn’t be hard to find the right one for you. Designed for maximum comfort, they allow users to sit comfortably for long and intense video gaming sessions.
20) Classic Video Arcade
Perhaps old school arcade games are more your style? Full sized video game cabinets can be purchased almost anywhere and come in many options. You can buy arcade cabinets that feature a single game, or those that include almost every classic 80s video game in one cabinet. They can be stand alone cabinets, or imbedded in table tops. You can even find arcade set ups that will hang from a wall in your basement playroom.
21) Neon Lights
If you are going with a classic video arcade design for your basement playroom, then neon lights will provide the right mood lighting. Nothing says, “Retro 80s Video Game Room,” better than neon lights. You can have these custom made, but it should not be too hard to find a design to fit your theme here.
22) Other Lighting Options
Depending on what theme you decide on for your basement playroom, lighting is extremely important. As mentioned earlier, most basements are dimly lit, but yours doesn’t have to be. In fact, if you are planning an active playroom, craft room, or jungle gym for your kids then bright lighting is best. There are several ways to light a basement, from hanging lights to canned lights. Decide what works best for your plan.
23) Storage Shelves
Regardless of what type of basement playroom you are designing, you’ll need storage. If you are designing a kids playroom, your kids will need a place to store their toys and craft supplies. Even a video game room need shelves to place gaming consoles, video game controllers, and video game boxes. One simple way to provide storage is to purchase shelves for your playroom.
24) Storage Bins
Another great way to store things is storage bins. Bins provide a place to store a lot of the smaller items that kids play with. From Legos to art supplies, bins will help keep things organized and separated. If you combine storage bins with shelves, you can store a lot of small items in a bin, push the bin into the shelf and viola! The shelf looks neat and tidy.
25) Pegboard Storage
Pegboard storage is also a unique way to store toys and craft supplies. Pegboard is very flexible because almost anything can be hung from it; from carpenter tools to nerf guns to bins that can hold smaller items. To learn how to install a pegboard wall in your basement playroom, click here.
So, there you have our 25 Basement Playroom Ideas. We covered playrooms for young kids and older kids. Lighting, storage, color, and themes. Hopefully, we were able to stimulate your imagination and help you realize that there are a lot of ways to convert an area of your basement into a playroom that your family will enjoy.
What do you think? Any ideas we forgot? Love one of our ideas and want to expand on it? Leave a comment and let us know!
