Teleposts in a basement | What are the options?

When it comes to basement developments, we typically need to work around teleposts in a basement. Summer seems to be a great time to renovate kitchens and develop basements. Currently, we have three basement development plans for three wonderful families where the posts are coming into play with the design.

Working around posts in a basement

Teleposts

I can not remember a time where we did not have to worry about teleposts in a basement when we are looking at creating a new design for the basement. First of all, what are those posts called and why do we need them?

A telepost is the steel column extending from the concrete floor to the underside of the beam. This is used to transfer the load from the main floor to a footing under the basement floor. Their locations are based on the span of the beams, joists and main floor loads.

Google

While there is always a way to move a telepost (it just may cost you dearly), we typically work around them. The cost to move them typically pushes people way over their desired investment.

As Is

When we look at options, we always start with an 'As Is' - what the space currently looks like. For one of our basement projects, we are dealing with teleposts that do not line up. I mean...really???

Well this should be interesting | Posts in a basement | As Is

When we look at creating design options for our clients, we like to look at a number of things. Number one is ensuring that we try our very best to check off all of the boxes on the wish list. The wishlist for this family consists of:

• A bathroom with a shower (no bath).
• An area to watch TV
• Exercise area
• Games area
• Bedroom

Option 1

Frame around teleposts

For our clients, Option 1 is always the most budget friendly. When looking teleposts in a basement and where they are situated, the easiest option is just to frame around the posts. Nothing fancy and nothing crazy. This plan allows for the majority of the basement to remain open allowing for flexibility down the road.

Frame around teleposts | Sheri Bruneau, Designer

Open concept basement by framing around teleposts | Sheri Bruneau, Designer

Option 2

Incorporate teleposts into a wall

For our second option, we hid the teleposts in walls. Due to the location of the posts, we decided to hide one post in a full wall and partially hide one in another.

Hiding teleposts within a wall | Sheri Bruneau, Designer

Teleposts within most of the walls | Sheri Bruneau, Designer

Working towards the final plan

A little of this and a little of that

When I presented these two options, together with my clients, we started working on the path to our final plan. What exactly does that mean? Most often clients will like some elements from Option 1 and Option 2. It is in this plan that we marry the two ideas together to work towards a plan that we can receive quotes from.

While we were looking at all of the options, we also decided to add on some additional features and solidify other features such as:

• a dry bar (with the potential to make it a wet bar).
• seperate area for the toilet/bath from the vanity (using a pocket door to seperate the areas).
• the use of a projector and a screen for the TV
• a reading area
• speakers for music

Final basement plan | Sheri Bruneau, Designer

Final basement plan | Sheri Bruneau, Designer

Our next steps

Now that our design is solidified, we are ready to host a trade day. It will be at this site meeting where I will ensure each trade has their scope of work required for this project. This allows the trades to accurately quote on the work that needs to be carried out. While the trades are compiling their quotes, I will start to pull together my 'pretty' budget. When we have the labour budget and our pretty budget, those two together equal our total investment.

It is common that we may have to tweak a few things however we are looking at this project o take place over the summer. It is our hope the family can start enjoying their new found space in the fall!

Basement Must Haves

For many basement designs we create, we know we are creating a new space for our clients to enjoy. For most of our projects, we know that movie night and relaxing are all important parts of the design. As such, I've rounded up some basement 'essentials' that work in any of our basement designs.

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