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Ask the remodeler: Building guest suites in your home for the holidays and beyond
Guess who’s coming to dinner. If it’s your family from out of town, you may want to consider investing in a private living space for them.
As we approach the holidays, family may be coming to town. Accommodating for situations like these has become a frequent remodel request: Can we design a place for family and friends to stay and be comfortable for an extended period?
And it’s more than just a spare bedroom. Clients are looking for a bedroom with access to its own bathroom, and a kitchenette with a small fridge, cabinets, a coffee maker, and a microwave. In a perfect world, it would also have a separate entrance. That can be tricky and typically involves a basement renovation or an addition somewhere on the house.
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There is a lot to unpack with this recent phenomenon, and we will look at two aspects of it here: what is driving it and how to accomplish it.
The most common reason to build a guest dwelling is for parents to have a place to stay when they visit, or if they need to be cared for. These have long been referred to as “in-law suites.” A surprising number of clients are also interested in having the space for friends to visit for more than a day or two. In the back of many people’s mind is also Airbnb rental income; virtually all clients bring that up at least as an aside. It may not be the motivating factor to undertake such a project, but many feel they may utilize their guest suite to help finance the work until the space is needed for friends or family. This is especially true for urban households.
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Most of these spaces we design and create are in basements. Much of that is due to the cost; It is less expensive per square foot to renovate than other parts of the house. It is also less disruptive to the family routine during the remodel.
Let’s start with general design and layout. Assuming you have code-compliant head height, we normally start our floor plan around the stairs that come into the basement from the first floor. Since those are integral to the rest of the house, they have to stay in place, and the space gets designed around it. From there, we often deal with the utilities (boiler/furnace, water heater, etc.). If these stay in place and are going to be enclosed in a mechanical room, they either need to be modern sealed combustion appliances, or you need to mechanically bring in combustion air from the outside. Sometimes we move the appliances to make for a better layout; in that case, the same parameters apply. Water/gas meters and electrical services typically get enclosed in a shallow closet without any disruption to the floor plan.
The separate entrance can pose some challenges. There is almost always a bulkhead entrance into the basement, and that is the most logical place to start. What we have done in the past is to remove the bulkhead and create a stairwell into the basement using the same door opening. It is important to have a dry well with drainage in this new stairwell since rain and snow will now fall into the space with bulkhead removed. Installing a door with glass allows some natural light to come into the space.
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With the general layout in place, there are four main areas to design into the newly created floor plan. You want to enter into a living area from the main floor, not directly into a bedroom. The bathroom has a very defined area it needs to be: mainly near where the sewer line leaves the house. This will, in all likelihood, need a sewage ejector placed inside the floor outside the bathroom to move the bathroom drain water up into the drain lines that leave the house. The bathroom should include at least a shower, ideally one large enough to possibly have a bench or seat placed in it.
After the bathroom space has been carved out, the bedroom area needs to be considered. This can be tricky due to building codes that mandate that you have a code-compliant egress (exit) window or door in the space.
Ask the Remodeler
You should not put a full kitchen into these spaces unless you want to reclassify your house as a two-family. A small section of cabinets and counter space, a mini fridge, a microwave, and a coffee maker will suffice. An electric hotplate can be stored in a cabinet for boiling water. When there is not enough space for a standalone kitchenette, we often use a corner of the living space.
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Virtually all the basements we do now have mini split heat pumps installed; these serve as the heat and the air conditioning. In addition to the pumps, we recommend a dehumidification system. Despite what you may read, the mini splits don’t work well for dehumidification in basements due the cooler temperatures that usually exist in basements.
Something to pay attention to early in the design process is groundwater. Some basement remodels require a French drain installed around the perimeter. This will ensure that during heavy rains (which are becoming more common) or the spring melt, your basement will stay dry.
One more water-related system to consider is a water main shutoff. These will detect a catastrophic leak that could ruin the newly remodeled basement and shut off the flow at the water main where it comes into the house. They are Wi-Fi enabled so you can get alerts and monitor things when not at the house. A small investment to protect your new space!
We would like to encourage reader questions! We love reading them and hopefully helping you find solutions for the never-ending challenge of being a homeowner.
Mark Philben is the project development manager at Charlie Allen Renovations in Cambridge. Send your questions to [email protected]. Questions are subject to editing. Subscribe to the Globe’s free real estate newsletter — our weekly digest on buying, selling, and design — at Boston.com/address-newsletter.
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