Light up the Lower Level

Two years after moving into their new 4,000-plus-square-foot Colonial home, these homeowners installed a backyard swimming pool. To make a direct route outdoors and create more recreation spaces for their family and many guests, they decided it was time to remodel the unfinished walkout basement.

Glass-panel doors separate the exercise room, bathroom and bedroom from the living areas, providing privacy while allowing light to filter in and out of the space. The bedroom's curved glass-block wall serves the same purpose.

Sun Design had already built a deck and cut a new doorway for these clients. Now, they charged the remodeler with designing a basement that reflected the look and feel of the upper floors as well as the backyard. They also wanted the rooms of the relatively dark space to be filled with natural light.

The plan included a full bath and bedroom with walk-in closet for the couple's teenage daughter; an exercise studio with mirrored walls and a ceiling-mounted television; a kitchenette; a billiards room, including niches for storage and shelves for beverages and snacks; and a media area.

The media area features a built-in entertainment center, a walk-in closet for games and storage, and surround sound with an in-wall speaker system that links to speakers throughout the basement.

Columns, arches and distinctive ceiling elements not only reflect accents throughout the rest of the house, they also divide shared spaces and hide plumbing, mechanical and electrical.

"Our team is attuned to looking at problems as opportunities, which helps when communicating ideas to the clients," says Durosko.

The basement's existing 10-foot ceiling allowed Sun Design to use concealing techniques such as a coffered ceiling without losing headroom. Arches in the kitchen and billiards room hide existing duct work and bulkheads. The curved shape is repeated in the stair landing, the kitchen counter, the glass-block bedroom wall and the tapered round columns at the foot of the stairs.