Designers Behaving Badly: What Happens When an Interior Designer Starts a Renovation Without a Plan?

There are probably more responsible ways to begin a renovation than asking your contractor, “Any chance you can start demo next week?” when you don’t actually have a design plan.

But here we are.

Our basement has been kind-of, sort-of on my list for a while. My kids are getting to the age where they need less of a playroom and more of a place they actually want to hang out. Somewhere they can pile in with their friends, watch movies, play games, and generally be comfortable without being in our way. And, probably more importantly, without us being in theirs.

With all of my kids away at sleepaway camp and about three weeks left before they came home, I had a thought: What if we just did it now?

I called our favorite contractor and asked if there was any chance he could come in and start demo.

He said yes.

I spent a weekend throwing out or donating almost every single thing in that basement. It’s a big basement, but it had mostly been home to toys (or, more accurately, parts of toys, abandoned dolls, a broken and graffitied Barbie Dream House and thousands of loose LEGOs) and almost no furniture - except for a massive overstuffed blue toile sofa that the previous homeowners couldn’t get up the narrow stairway and left for us.

The only problem? I had absolutely no plan.

I knew the floors needed to be redone. We had a flood about three weeks after we moved in (and yet, miraculously, the previous owners said that in the 30+ years they lived here, the basement had never seen any water).

Because of the flood the carpet had already been ripped up, and we installed French drains, but I never replaced the floors or repaired the walls in that area because I knew that one day this renovation would happen.

I also knew the ceiling had to go.

The existing basement had a drop ceiling with acoustic tiles, many of which were missing. There had also been various leaks over the years, so I really had no idea what we were going to find once everything came down.

Beyond that, I was surprisingly undecided.

And in my middle age, I have finally made peace with the type of person I am: someone who thinks and pontificates, has a hard time committing, and then acts a bit spontaneously. My vacation planning is like this too. If I’m being honest with myself, I always knew that doing this basement would be an impulsive decision.

Basements are tricky. Ours has low ceilings (very low), several lally columns, and ceiling heights that seem to change every few feet depending on what’s happening above. I kept trying to make sense of the columns and figure out where to hide them, but they really didn’t line up with anything. The changes in ceiling height should have been useful for defining different rooms or zones, but nothing felt particularly obvious.

And normally, all of this would bother me.

My job is quite literally to have a plan.

But this time, I decided we could figure it out as we went.

For the moment, my criteria were surprisingly simple: make it clean, make it somewhere the kids and their friends actually want to be, and create a foundation that would allow me to add some personality and fun later down the road.

So we started ripping things out.

And once the ceiling came down, we could finally see what we were actually working with.

Which, of course, is when “down the road” became right now.

In the coming weeks I’ll be sharing the process of my basement renovation, the design decisions, what changes once the walls and ceilings are opened up, how much a basement renovation actually costs, and all of the unexpected things that inevitably come with renovating.

Next up: the electrician needed a lighting plan, which meant I suddenly needed an actual floor plan. So much for winging it.

Basements: The Most Underrated Square Footage in the House
A look at some basements we’ve designed for clients and basement renovation tips (which I may or may not be following!)

There Will Be No Recessed Lights
Why we’d almost always rather use a decorative flush mount than a recessed light - a philosophy my seven-foot basement ceilings are currently putting to the test.

Space Planning is Our Love Language

Why we believe the best rooms start with a good floor plan - even when the designer in question tries very hard to skip that step.