I’m still in the early stages, but I’m working on buying a new house–and unlike my current abode, this one will have a BASEMENT!!!
Basements are rare in California, except in older cities like Sacramento. This one is kind of unusual to those not from the central valley, it’s actually an above-ground basement. The house is known as a “High Water Bungalow,” elevated off the ground by quite a margin in order to provide clearance in case of flooding. The end result is a basement that starts at ground level, the floor level of the house is about 7 or so feet off the ground. Half of the basement is walled off to create a room roughly 30 feet deep by 10 feet wide. That, assuming everything goes through okay, would be the new layout space. Moving will put my sectional layout theories to the test: they’ll be easy to break down and relatively easy to transport, but how hard will it be to integrate the sections into their new home?
Not much substance to this post, other than my ill-contained excitement at the prospect of expanding my layout from its rather cramped home in my tiny detatched garage (read the garage thread for the problems with that) to an Actual Basement!
Oh yeah, there’s a house too…it looks a lot like the Atlas “Barb’s Bungalow” except for the taller “high water” aspect of it, and a couple of bay windows. My wife is pretty excited about having an actual room for her office, instead of what is essentially a closet.
Wow, that is really great news[tup], I’ve been reading your earlier posts about the challenges with your current garage setup. I sure hope the dreaded flooding never occurs, though…
This part of California is not “earthquake country” in the same way as the Bay Area and the Los Angeles basin. The central valley gets a little rumble but is generally pretty stable. The common reason why California homes don’t have basements is earthquakes, but keep in mind that this isn’t a below-ground basement, but rather at ground level. So it’s really more like a two-story house with a short, unfinished first floor. The house was built in 1910, and at some point the foundation was re-done to modern standards, and the required California earthquake precautions have been taken. In the past 95 years it has been able to withstand the various little shakes we get out here.
As far as flooding goes, well, I’m still going to build the layout to sectional/removable standards, so if there is ever an urgent need to bring the layout upstairs, I can…
If it is new construction and they will comply you would do well to spend the money and extend the basement to 9’. Then when you put in the drop ceiling and cover all the pipes you will still have plenty of headroom.
I too just got a new basement. Now I cannot afford a new layout, and do not have the time anyway with all the “to do” stuff. But, I have about 15’ by 22’ feet that is patiently waiting.