A Chicago basement is usually the largest unplanned space in the house. It can hold the media room, the gym, the bar, the guest suite and the storage, and it fails when it is finished as one undivided room with a television at one end.
We design Chicago lower levels as real rooms: zoned first, then built-in millwork, lighting planned for a floor without much daylight, and finishes chosen to handle a basement rather than to look like the floor above.
A basement is a planning problem before it is a decorating one. Zones come first.
What the floor has to hold, and where each use goes: media, play, exercise, bar, guests and storage.
Media walls, bars and storage drawn to the room so the space reads as designed rather than furnished.
Layered light planned for low ceilings and few windows, on dimmers, so the floor feels deliberate at any hour.
A ceiling plan that deals with ducts, beams and pipes rather than pretending they are not there.
Floors, rugs and wall finishes chosen for a lower level and for how hard the room is used.
Seating scaled to the room, art, and the objects that keep a lower level from feeling like a spare floor.
In Chicago's greystones and older two-flats, the lower level was built as a service floor: low ceilings, a plumbing stack running through the middle, and windows at the top of the wall if there are windows at all.
Every inch of height matters here, so the ceiling plan is the first drawing. Where ducts and beams can be re-routed, they should be. Where they cannot, they get designed into a coffered or dropped ceiling that looks intentional rather than avoided.
The rest is light. Layered lighting, pale ceilings and a few well-placed mirrors do more for a garden level than any amount of furniture, and they are what keep the floor from reading as a basement.
The ceiling plan is the first drawing.
Newer construction usually delivers a large, tall, blank lower level, often with a rough-in for a bathroom and nothing else. It is the easiest square footage in the house to make useful and the easiest to waste.
We divide it before anything is finished: a media room that is actually a room, a gym with the right floor and mirrors, a bar positioned for the way people move through the floor, and storage that keeps the rest of it clear. Coming in before the framing is closed means the lighting, the outlets and the millwork land where the plan needs them.
Divide the floor before anything is finished.
A walk through your home tells us whether your basement needs a remodel, or furnishing and styling.
Five stages take a Chicago basement renovation from the first plan to install day. Bring us in at the first one, and we can shape every stage that follows.
Before anything is framed, we decide what the floor holds and where each use goes: media, play, exercise, bar, guests and storage, with the ceiling plan drawn around ducts and beams.
What we deliverZoned floor plan, ceiling plan and lighting plan.
Millwork, flooring, tile, fittings and lighting are chosen together, in person, for a floor that has to handle hard use and very little daylight.
What we deliverMillwork elevations, finish selections and fixture specifications.
Custom millwork, stone and fittings carry lead times, so they are ordered once selections are final and before the trades need them.
What we deliverEvery order placed and confirmed against the drawings.
Your contractor builds from our plans, elevations and lighting drawings. We stay involved so ceiling heights, blocking and outlet positions are right the first time.
What we deliverSite meetings and answers for the trades.
Seating, rugs, art and the objects that make a lower level feel like part of the house go in last, placed by our team.
What we deliverThe final install day and styling.
The failure mode of a finished basement is that it reads as leftover space: one enormous carpeted room, a sectional at one end, and beige everywhere because nobody wanted to commit.
A lower level can take more color and more pattern than the floors above, because it is used in the evening and there is no daylight to fight with. Treat it as a floor of the house, not as storage with a sofa, and it becomes the room the family actually lives in.
A Chicago lower level usually needs building out before it needs furnishing. Which one you are looking at decides which of our two services fits.
Many Chicago lower levels need a little of both, and we will tell you plainly which before anything is ordered.
Media rooms, gyms and bars from recent projects in Chicago and the western suburbs. See more in the full portfolio.
Every room asks a different question. See how we approach each one, starting in Chicago.
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Yes. We start with a ceiling plan, because height is the constraint in an older lower level, and design around the stack, ducts and beams rather than around them at the last minute.
Usually more than people expect: a media room, a gym, a bar, a playroom, a guest suite with a bathroom, and the storage that keeps the rest of the house clear. The plan decides how many of those fit.
In layers, on dimmers. With few or no windows, the lighting plan does what daylight does upstairs: ambient light for the whole floor, task light where it is needed, and accent light so the room has depth.
Something that tolerates moisture and heavy use. We specify the floor with your contractor alongside whatever moisture management the building needs, then layer rugs to warm and divide the space.
Yes. A gym needs the right floor, mirrors placed to be useful rather than decorative, ventilation and lighting that is not directly overhead, and it should be planned before the space is divided.
Plan first, then build. Zoning and the ceiling plan, then millwork drawings and selections, then ordering, then construction, then installation and styling.
It should belong to the house without copying it. A lower level is used in the evening and has no daylight, so it can take deeper color and more pattern than the floors above.
Yes. We issue the plan, ceiling and lighting drawings, millwork elevations and specifications, attend site meetings and stay involved through installation.
Tell us about your home and how you want to live in it. We will walk you through our design process and what working together looks like.
