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Finishing basements with stem walls
Our house has an unfinished daylight basement. We're giving some thought to finishing it and I'm curious how to finish the outside walls. The stem walls are 8" thick and the wall framing on top of it is constructed with 2x6s. This leaves a 2" ledge on the inside of the stem walls. I've bought a few "finishing basements" books and none of them address how to deal with this ledge. How would you construct a finish wall to eliminate this ledge while maximizing floor space?
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Finishing basements with stem walls
The stem walls extend to 20" or so above the floor. Sort of an awkward height for a shelf or wainscot trim. The stem wall could be built up taller to a more visually appealing height but there are five windows that are set right on top of the stem wall (basement egress). We need to run electrical outlets per code too. Is there a code that says the outlets need to be 18" or so off the ground? If so they would have to be mounted on the stem wall so we'd have to build it out some to accomodate the box depth. Are there shallow electrical boxes? Insulation isn't a big concern since the walls are full of blown cellulose now, but I'd take the opportunity to add a bit more before closing them in.
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Finishing basements with stem walls
I'm an idiot. I should have gone down to look at it before relying on my CRS infected memory. The stem wall is about 7" tall, the window sills are more like 20" off the floor. The link below links to a picture of what I'm talking about.
This will be easier than I thought. The stem wall ledge is about 2.5". Framing it out so it's flush with the stem wall seems like it will work fine. We'd are planning to trim it all out with laquered beadboard wainscoting. Outlet boxes shouldn't be a problem at all.
The question is should I frame it flush with the concrete and then sheetrock over the stem wall? Maybe with greenboard? Or should I frame it shy of the stem wall, use sheetrock to bring the wall flush with the concrete, and then install wainscoting to cover up the concrete? The concrete is never damp.
Thanks for the advice.
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Finishing basements with stem walls
The wainscot is MDF tongue in groove. We have it in other areas of the house and it's nice. It takes paint very well and is dimensionally stable. The basement is air conditioned so there is no humidity problem. I do recommend painting it on all sides before installation though. We had some MDF baseboard ruined by cat piss (damn cats) and it would have held up much better if it were painted prior to installation.
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Finishing basements with stem walls
We have window seats in other rooms but there are pop-outs that give more room for seating. I don't really want to rebuild the outside wall so seats there would require some floor space. Hmm. Have to think about that.
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