The Halvorsen basement

A guest suite, office, and library built into a basement that first spent a month learning not to be damp.

The Halvorsens needed a guest suite for visiting parents and an office that was not the dining table. The basement had the space and a moisture problem, so the project started outside: regraded beds, new gutters, and an interior drain tile run before a single stud went up.

The finished level does not feel like a basement, which was the assignment: a shop-built oak desk wall and library, an egress window that reads as a real window, and a guest bath with the same tile standards as upstairs.

“Their first estimate and the final invoice were the same number. In this industry that fact alone deserves five stars.”

Erik H.