Lively basements

Every afternoon after school, Holden and Aron Wegner head downstairs to the recreation room in their Bethesda home, at least when the weather is cold.

Holden, 9, and Aron, 11, can play air hockey, pingpong or pinball — or they can head to the media room, where their family likes to watch Super Bowl games, movies and television shows. The soundproof room is equipped with a viewing screen and two levels of reclining theater chairs and love seats that all together seat 10.

“When there’s big events, it’s really nice to have it. It makes everything into a party,” says Susan Wegner, the boys’ mother.

As for their sons, “We wanted to give them an area they could call their own,” Mrs. Wegner says.

Mrs. Wegner and her husband, Adam, with the help of the interior design firm Sroka Design Inc. in Bethesda, planned the basement four years ago when the Wegners’ four-story home was custom-built.

“Essentially, basements [originally] were created as storage space and to rest a house on a foundation,” says Skip Sroka, owner of Sroka Design Inc. “Today, they are built as part of the house, and so people are choosing to capture that space now, because it’s basically free space.”

Today’s basements are being designed for a variety of functions, including home offices; workout areas; playrooms; party rooms; family rooms; media or theater rooms; rental units; and rooms for guests, in-laws or live-in help.

“At one point, people viewed [basements] as a second-class part of the house,” Mr. Sroka says. “They are now embraced. People don’t have hang-ups about using them.”

Over time, homeowners began using basements as secondary parts of the home, including recreation rooms, hobby rooms and extra bedrooms instead of just for storage, Mr. Sroka says. The typical basement in an older home was unfinished with small windows or well windows, he says.

In today’s new homes, the basement is left unfinished or as a pay-for option to have it finished, says Ronald Holbrook, owner of the Design Studio in Chevy Chase. He is a professor of interior design at the Georgetown campus of the Corcoran College of Art and Design.

“The guts are there. You just have to finish it up later,” he says.

A few things can be done to a basement to turn it into a living space. First, if a guest room is built into the basement, the room can be required by local code to have closets and egress windows to allow for fire escape, interior designer Peggy Fisher says.

Below-ground basements require minimal insulation because the earth provides an even temperature, says Mrs. Fisher, co-owner with her husband, Ken, of Fisher Group in Annandale. Insulation is necessary for basements that are partially above ground, according to the specific conditions of the site, she says.

In addition, Mrs. Fisher recommends enlarging windows to bring in more light or using artificial light to increase the livability of basement space.

“Often, there is not natural light, so you want to compensate with artificial lighting,” she says.

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