Basement Entry

I don't know if our type of home is unique to British Columbia, but there are a lot of them here, and they were very popular about fifteen years ago.

'Basement entry' is a bit of a misnomer because we don't actually have a basement.  Our house is built on a concrete slab with two stories completely above grade.  You walk in on the ground floor and then up a flight of stairs to the main floor where you find most of the bedrooms plus all your living space.

The so-called basement isn't usually finished by the builder (which makes them cheaper to buy).  Ours is poorly finished and the layout is choppy.  But we love our neighbourhood, the kids can walk to some of the best schools in the city and our view is amazing.  So instead of moving, we started thinking about what it would take to move our living space downstairs and add some bedrooms upstairs.

 

 
"If we're going to fix up the downstairs anyway, how much harder would it be to rework the layout and put our kitchen, living and dining rooms downstairs?"

Famous last words.