100 Front St, Ste 300, Worcester, MA, 01608
Apartments and In-Law Suites in Worcester
We take the layout to the city before anybody opens a wall, build the separation the inspector signs off, and keep the two floors from hearing each other.
You end up with a second, separate place to live inside the house, with its own way in and its own quiet.
This group is about making one house hold two households. A separate entrance, a kitchen, sound separation between the floors, and the occupancy the city will actually sign.
Media rooms and soundproofing sit here because they are the same walls built for a different reason. The window a bedroom down here has to have is on egress and code compliance.
We have finished about sixty basement suites around Worcester since 2012, and most of them went under two-families and three-deckers rather than under single family houses.
Most of it is an in-law suite, a bedroom, a bathroom, a sitting area and a kitchenette, reached through the house and lived in by a relative. Then full apartments with their own door, their own kitchen and their own heat. Then media rooms and the soundproofing either one needs.
Separation between the floors is resilient channel and two layers of board with the joist bays filled, rather than insulation on its own. It is what stops a chair moving upstairs at eleven being an event downstairs.
Two calls. A family bringing a parent home from an apartment they can no longer manage, and the owner of a two-family who wants the basement to be a third unit rather than storage.
Ask for a free layout visit at (508) 555-0147 and we will walk the basement with you. You will stop apologizing about the stairs and start showing people down them.
The layout, the framing, the separation and the finishes are ours. The appliances and the meter are yours to choose and the city's to approve.
Services
For the family bringing a parent home from somewhere they can no longer manage, and for the owner of a two-family whose cellar holds nothing but bicycles. Who is moving in decides the entrance, the kitchen and the heating, so that is the first question we ask and the one the drawings follow.
For the household that wants somewhere a film can be loud at ten at night, and for the basement already being framed where the cable has to go in now or never. The projector feed, the speaker runs, a dark wall behind the screen and the lighting on its own switch all happen before the board goes up.
For the suite where every footstep overhead lands in the middle of the room below, and for the tenant, the shift worker and the drum kit sharing one floor structure. Filling the joist bays softens voices. Footsteps take resilient channel and a second layer of board, and we say which of the two your house actually needs.
Most people who ask for an apartment actually want a suite, and it is a far shorter job.
Where a relative is moving in and the house stays one household, a suite is the answer. It shares the front door, the boiler and the meter, it needs no zoning question answered, and it can be built and lived in inside a month.
Where the space will be let to somebody unrelated, or sold as a two-family later, it has to be a unit. Its own entrance, its own kitchen, its own heat, and a separation the city will sign off. Built as a suite and then quietly rented, it is the owner who carries that.
We say which on the visit, and we say it when the cheaper one is enough. Most of the people who call asking for an apartment describe a suite once we ask who is moving in, and the quote comes back accordingly.
A solid core door at the foot of the stairs, and a separation the inspector can see from below.
Ceilings between a suite and the house above take resilient channel screwed across the joists, two layers of board on it with the seams offset, and the bays above filled with mineral wool rather than left open. Board fixed straight to the joists carries every footstep, and insulation on top does not fix that later.
The stair door is solid core, hung to close and latch on its own, and the walls either side of it are boarded up to the underside of the floor rather than stopped at the ceiling line.
Kitchenettes get a circuit of their own, an extract duct going outside rather than a recirculating hood, and a floor running on under the units so the whole thing can come out again.
Call and we will walk the basement with you, listen to what comes through the ceiling, and say what the separation actually needs to be.
(508) 555-0147Two basements the same size can end up a spare room or a second home. What separates them is the entrance, the kitchen, the heating and how much quiet you want between the floors.
Which of these apply comes out of an hour walking the basement and a call to the city, and the quote separates the suite itself from the separation work. Get a free quote
Four to seven weeks on a whole basement, and the noise and the dust are over inside the first two of them.
Call and you get a callback the same day, then a free visit to measure up and find where water gets in.
Get a free quoteRooms that can be let are valued differently from rooms that are simply finished.
No published report puts a resale percentage on a basement suite. Remodeling studies price a basement finish as one job and stop there, and what a second dwelling does to a sale depends on the zoning of the lot, which is a street by street answer no national survey carries.
What can be checked is that a unit with an income attached gets priced on that income, while a spare room gets priced by the square foot. That is why the entrance and the kitchen matter more to the number than the flooring ever will.
The decisions that hold it are the ones that are hard to add later. The separate door, the ceiling separation, and having the occupancy on paper rather than in an understanding.
The stock here is two-families and three-deckers with a stair already down to the cellar, one boiler serving the whole house, and a rental market of students and hospital staff.
Six basement suites, apartments and media rooms finished recently, each with the town it is in. Two of them are let and the rest hold family.
In-law suite under a three-decker
Vernon Hill
A bedroom, a shower room and a kitchenette went in under the first floor, with the ceiling channelled and double boarded before anything else.
Basement flat with its own door
Shrewsbury
The bulkhead came out and a proper stair and door went in, so the tenant never has to walk through the owner's hallway to get home.
Media room with the cable in first
Holden
Speaker cable and a projector feed went in before the board, and the wall behind the screen was painted dark on the same day.
Suite for a parent moving home
Tatnuck
Level thresholds throughout, a wider door into the shower room, and a zone valve so that the suite is warm without heating the whole house.
Ceiling separation added late
Auburn
The basement was already finished and far too loud. The ceiling came down, the bays were filled and channel went up before it was reboarded.
Kitchenette in ten feet of wall
Grafton
A sink, a compact fridge, two rings and an extract duct straight out through the wall, all on one run and on one dedicated circuit.
Rated 5 out of 5
Water across the floor by the stairs every March. They ran a drain along the fieldstone side and set the pit in the low corner. First spring in nine years with a dry slab.
Rated 5 out of 5
The town would not sign off on my son's bedroom without a proper egress window. Digging the well ran two days over because of ledge, they told me that the morning it happened, and it passed first time.
Rated 5 out of 5
We only meant to do the one corner for a desk. It ended up with the boiler and the washer framed into their own room, which I would not have thought of, and the panel by the shutoff was their idea too.
If you would rather hear it from a family who has one of these downstairs, call and we will ask.
Get a free quoteFAQs
Questions people ask about basement suites
That is a zoning question rather than a building one, and it is answered at the counter rather than by us. What we can tell you is what the drawing has to show before you ask, and we take it in. A kitchenette without a range is treated differently from a full kitchen in most cases.
Usually yes, and that is the single thing most likely to decide whether the plan works. A unit reached only through somebody else's living space is a hard sell to the city and a harder one to a tenant. A bulkhead converted to a stair is the common answer here.
We fit it. Cabinets, worktop, sink and the extract run are ours, and the appliances are yours to choose so that you are not paying our markup on a fridge. The circuit and the connections are done by the licensed electrician and plumber we bring in.
Five to eight weeks for a suite once the drawings are back, and longer for a unit that needs a zoning decision, because that waiting is out of everybody's hands. The build itself is the predictable part. The paperwork in front of it is what moves the date.
Yes, and nearly everybody does. The noisy fortnight is the framing and the ceiling, and after that it is quiet work. What you lose is the basement stair as a route, so anything stored down there should come up first, including the things behind the boiler.
We do the building side, which is the drawings, the filing and the inspections. Anything about zoning or occupancy is the owner's application and has your name on it, so we prepare it and go with you rather than doing it in your place. Nothing gets opened up until it is back.
Mass and separation, in that order, and insulation on its own does the least of the three. Filling the bays softens voices. Resilient channel breaks the path a footstep takes through the joist, and the second layer of board adds the mass. Doing one without the others disappoints people.
Yes, and it is worth building so that it can be. A kitchenette on one wall with the floor running under it lifts out in a day and leaves a room. Cutting a new entrance is the part that does not undo easily, so that is the decision to be sure about.
It can do both, and neither is ours to answer. The assessor decides what a second unit does to the valuation, and your insurer needs telling that somebody is living down there whether they pay rent or not. Ask both before you commit rather than afterwards.
Yes, and the sensible split is separation first, fit-out later. Ceiling, walls, stair door and the rough services go in as one piece of work, because all of it is behind the board. The kitchen, the flooring and the decorating can wait a year without anything being opened up twice.
Not yet, because a suite is somewhere people sleep and a damp smell is water getting in from somewhere. That work is waterproofing and moisture control and it goes first. It is usually a perimeter drain, a sump and a dehumidifier rather than anything drastic.
Yes, and it is worth doing before the work rather than after, so you know what you started with. Testing and mitigation is a specialist radon contractor with their own equipment, not us, and we will say so. A room somebody sleeps in every night is the one where that reading matters.
Basements in Worcester since 2012, and every call gets a callback the same day.
Worcester Basement Pros turns unfinished basements into rooms people use, in Worcester and out through Shrewsbury, Auburn, Holden, Millbury and Grafton. Framing and insulation, floors, ceilings and lighting, waterproofing and sump work, egress windows, basement bathrooms, wet bars and in-law suites.
Why give the basement to Worcester Basement Pros?
Tell us what you want the basement to do and what it does when it rains, and we will come and measure it. Call (508) 555-0147 and you get a callback the same day. If what you have is a bowing wall, a cracked pier or a radon reading, that is an engineer or a radon contractor rather than us, and we will say so instead of boarding over it.
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office@worcesterbasementpros.com
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100 Front St, Ste 300, Worcester, MA, 01608
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