A basement can be the largest area in a home, yet it often serves as a dumping ground for long-neglected toys and stray boxes of office supplies.
It doesn’t have to be that way. The following makeovers, done by four local interior designers, prove that a basement can be more than an afterthought.
There’s no reason not to capitalize on this space, says Sallie Lord, the founder of Chantilly’s Grey Hunt Interiors: “It’s crazy to not use that valuable real estate. That can be your nightclub, your theater, your cocktail space, your gym—all of these things.”
Whether you’re looking to expand your entertaining possibilities or simply to carve out a special place to hide out and get away from it all, your basement may hold a lot of potential.
Billiards and Bourbon
When Regan Billingsley’s Bethesda clients redid their basement, they “really wanted a space for their family to hang out,” she says. And the whole family, not just the kids, because the finished product is anything but typical: For one, it contains its very own speakeasy, which is something you don’t come across every day in residential spaces.
The designer, of Georgetown’s Regan Billingsley Interiors, worked with Pinehurst Design Build in North Bethesda, led by Tom Gilday.
Despite the basement’s space challenges, a pool table was among the clients’ priorities. The husband, a bourbon collector, also craved a speakeasy-like space to display favorite bottles and entertain friends. “This was really a space that had to serve many functions,” Billingsley says.
Prior to the renovation, the basement had been partially finished—it contained a TV room and office (later combined to create a larger TV room), storage areas (one is now the speakeasy), and three spaces still in the floor plan: a gym, a bedroom, and a bathroom. But it all felt “very hard, very cold, and very dark,” Billingsley says. She addressed the lack of good lighting by adding built-in fixtures, and she softened the space with textural touches and natural materials, such as a rug made from 100 percent felted New Zealand wool.
“Even though there are no exterior windows, you feel some association with the outdoors,” Billingsley says. “You don’t feel like you’re underground.”
The speakeasy is accessible via a secret door that on one side holds pool cues and stacks of books. Billingsley wanted visitors to feel like they were slipping into an early-20th-century hideaway, so she looked for decor that hailed from that era, including reclaimed barnwood, a phone dating to 1920, a factory light from 1930s Paris, and an old whiskey barrel, which doubles as a bar table. Guests can sip cocktails while perched on one of the red mohair-covered barstools.
From Day to Night
Designer Sallie Lord, of Grey Hunt Interiors, was asked to transform an underutilized, carpeted Ashburn basement into a hangout where the clients’ teenage children could spend time with their friends but that would appeal to grownups as well.
“I took the opportunity to really redefine the room to provide different experiences within the space that cater to what the kids needed and also what the adults would need,” Lord says.
In a somewhat untraditional move, she took over the basement’s closets and turned them into nook-like spaces. “I love making little jewel-box closets,” the designer says, adding that she enjoys “making a moment out of something that’s unexpected.”
One closet is home to the family’s pared-down collection of board games, which Lord neatly tucked inside a petite wooden cabinet with rattan-covered doors. She covered the interior of the closet with Abnormals Anonymous “Secret Garden” wallpaper in Blue Velvet. “It was such an inspiration for the space with the colors and what I wanted to do,” she says. “It was just super-fun to play with.”
In the other closet, a wine bar caters to the over-21 set and features a substantial countertop for preparing beverages; a wine fridge; and plenty of additional bottle storage in the form of racks mounted to the wall. In a separate part of the room, another refrigerator holds soda and bottled water. “The kids have their refreshment area,” Lord says, “and then the adults have theirs.”
She chose to go dark on the wall behind the television. “The TV kind of melts into it,” she says. However, Lord was mindful to keep the rest of the space cheerful: “I didn’t want to send the kids down into a cave. I wanted the basement to be able to go day-and-night, like the perfect little black dress but in a very fun, more modern way.”
A Bookworm’s Paradise
The client was an avid reader looking for a place to pore over novels and get away from it all, so Erica Carpenter, of Ashburn’s KBF by Audi Contractors, carved out this hidden, library-influenced retreat in the basement.
“He wanted a little secret space,” Carpenter says of her Ashburn client. While seeking design inspiration online, he came across a hidden-door concept he loved, and Carpenter got to work. She created a bookcase-like entrance that can be opened only by pulling one of the books displayed on its shelf.
Carpenter wanted the retreat to feel masculine and moody, so she painted the shelves and wall paneling in Sherwin-Williams “Gale Force,” having covered a bar area elsewhere in the basement with a similar blue. When the lights are dimmed, the space feels even cozier. “It’s really for him to kind of escape,” she says of the room, which her client describes as his favorite part of the house. “You wouldn’t even know he’s in there.”
Once the makeover was complete, the client’s wife bought him a comfy leather chair where he can kick back and embrace full bookworm status.
Historic Makeover With British Flair
This basement in a home on Georgetown’s historic Smith Row got a major overhaul when Tracy Morris, of Tracy Morris Design, came in to make it over.
“The only thing that really existed was the kitchen, and we flipped it over to the other side,” says the McLean designer. She worked alongside Overmyer Architects and Goldsborough Design Build to revamp and restructure the entire space.
To best suit the clients’ needs, the team decided the basement would contain a bar room (where the kitchen originally was), an area for TV-watching, a wine room, a guitar room, and a powder room. The owners still wanted a kitchen down there, so it was moved next to the new bar room.
Morris says the bar area was inspired by her clients’ love of pubs in England and Ireland. The exposed-wood beams, original to the home, had been refurbished during the renovation. Morris landed on a blue-and-gold Phillip Jeffries wallpaper for the space. “The client just loved it,” she says. “We ran with it, and then we found an antique rug that had those blues and creams.” The tabletop and bar countertop feature the same azure-blue quartzite from Marble Systems used on the basement’s fireplace surround. “It is a well-utilized space, and they entertain a lot,” says Morris.
The wine cellar, featuring temperature-controlled wine refrigerators, was “100 percent a new space that was made to look old,” Morris says. A limestone carving of Joan of Arc, original to the home, makes a floor-to-ceiling statement. “That room was pretty much built around her.”
The flagstone on the fireplace inset is original to the home and was taken from its foundation, cleaned, and reused as the surround.
This article appears in the May 2024 issue of Washingtonian.
