Finishing Basements and Attics: Ideas and Projects for Expanding Your Living Space (Black & Decker Home Improvement Library)

Rating:
Summary: I learned a lot from this book
Review: I am a complete home improvement dummy who is trying to build out her basement. This book was great at teaching me the basics & forcing me to think in a logical step by step manner - heating first, earthquake proofing next, etc. It also helped me understand drywalling techniques & effective insulation. Further, it helped me focus on building codes & regulations (I hadn't thought of that & as I said, i'm a home improvement dummy). Plus the pictures gave me great ideas. On the whole, a worthwhile investment. This book does assume that you'll want to *do* your own basement so there are tons of pictures showing you how to effectively insulate etc...

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Place to Start
Review: My wife brought this book and 5 others home from the library for us to review as we are just starting to finish our basement. This book is the best of the six by far. It's drawback is that it is not comprehensive - if you don't have some basic knowledge/experience and you want to do the work yourself, then you will want more detail. For the few pages that are there, however, the book does an excellent job showing the work at hand and gives some good ideas. I'll likely buy the book to have it on hand as we progress. Enjoy your project!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Place to Start
Review: My wife brought this book and 5 others home from the library for us to review as we are just starting to finish our basement. This book is the best of the six by far. It's drawback is that it is not comprehensive - if you don't have some basic knowledge/experience and you want to do the work yourself, then you will want more detail. For the few pages that are there, however, the book does an excellent job showing the work at hand and gives some good ideas. I'll likely buy the book to have it on hand as we progress. Enjoy your project!

Rating:
Summary: great book
Review: This is a great place to start with if you're a do-it-yourselfer planning to finish your basement. The only drawback I found is that it leaves you wanting more. I ended up buying more books on plumbing, flooring, and building in general. I managed to find several good used books. I'll probably end up buying a book on electrical work too (I'm still working on my basement). I also did a lot of research on the internet. Also, there's a lot of variation on local building codes, so you need to talk to your governing authority to get specifics. In the end, you might decide to do some parts of the job yourself and leave other parts for professionals. In any case, reading through this book will give you a lot of ideas to get started.