The room under the whole house
In Munster you do not have a basement, you have a full basement
Nearly every house in this town sits on a full basement. The whole footprint, all 4 walls, floor to joists. That is not true everywhere, and it is the single biggest thing people here miss about their own storage.
It means a typical Munster ranch has more usable wall downstairs than it has in the garage. Often close to twice as much. And almost none of it is carrying anything, because the wall is poly wrapped insulation and nobody wants to be the person who puts the first hole in it.
So the floor does all the work. Bins go along the base of the wall, then a second row in front of the first, then a stack in the middle, and the path narrows until you are turning sideways to get to the furnace filter.
I build into that wall instead. 2x4 ledgers lagged into the studs behind the plastic, front uprights carrying down to the slab, plywood decks on top. The floor comes back and the room starts doing a job again. If you want the garage side of the same house, that is on my Munster garage and basement page.
Not a stock photo
The before and after on this page is a Munster basement
Every before and after image on this site came out of one afternoon in one house in this town. It is the closest thing to a walk through I can hand you.
BeforeAfterOne wall, one house here in town, shot the day I built it. The steel column is in frame and the pile in the corner never got moved for the camera. Drag the handle across.
What is actually behind a Munster basement wall
Walk down the stairs in most of the older housing stock here and you get the same wall: a framed stud wall standing just off the foundation, fiberglass batts between the studs, and a sheet of poly stapled over the whole thing. No drywall, no paint, just plastic. You can see the batts through it. It looks like the least structural surface in the house.
It is not. That framing is real lumber on normal spacing, usually 16 inches on center, and it is the reason a proper shelf can go on that wall at all. I find the studs, and a 2x4 ledger gets lagged through into the framing. The load ends up in wood, not in plastic and not in a batt of insulation. I do not tear the wall open to do it and I do not leave the poly hanging in strips when I am done.
Two things I do run into here, and both are fine, they just change the build:
- A bare poured wall with nothing framed on it. Common on the short walls and in the mechanical corner. There is no stud to hit, so that run gets built differently and I will tell you exactly how on the call rather than after.
- Half finished basements. A rec room on one side, bare storage on the other. That happens in a lot of Munster houses where somebody got partway through a project. I only need the unfinished half, and the shelving usually ends up against the shared wall where nobody sees it from the couch.
This is the level of detail the general basement shelving page covers across all 9 towns. Here I can be more specific, because I have been in these houses.
Before I cut a single board
The 6 things that decide where a Munster basement shelf can go
None of these are on a box in a store. All of them are on your ceiling, your floor or your stairs.
The lowest thing in the bay
Top shelf height does not come off the joists. It comes off whatever hangs lowest in that bay: the duct trunk, the main beam, a drain line, a run of pipe. I measure bay by bay and the tops step where they have to.
The turn at the bottom of the stairs
Plenty of basements here have a straight run with a turn at the base. If a loaded tote will not make that turn, it does not belong down there, and I would rather say so before I build a deck for it.
The wall behind the poly
Framed wall, fiberglass batts, plastic over the top. The studs are there on 16 inch spacing and that is what the ledger bites into. Where a wall is bare poured concrete, that run gets its own approach.
How high the bottom deck starts
Munster is flat and the water table is not far down. After a heavy Region storm a thin line of water can run the base of the wall. The bottom deck starts high enough that a wet slab is a mop, not a loss.
The steel column and the walk around
That painted lally column in the middle of the floor is holding your house up. Nothing fastens to it, nothing crowds it, and it is usually where I break one long run into two shorter ones.
How often you touch each bin
Christmas comes out once. The camping tub comes out six times. The bin of your kids school work comes out never. Those are 3 different shelf heights, and getting that wrong is what sends bins back to the floor.
Zone the wall by how often you actually reach for it
This is the part that makes a Munster basement different from a basement in a town people pass through. People stay here. They raise a family in one house, and then their kid buys a house 4 streets over. A basement in a town like that does not just collect storage, it collects history.
So almost every job I do down here has the same 3 kinds of thing in it, and they do not belong at the same height:
- Archive. Photo boxes, school papers, the bins from a parents house, the wedding dress. Touched once every few years, if that. This goes on the top decks, up in the 2 feet of wall that is currently holding nothing, and it stays there.
- Seasonal. Holiday totes, the lake chairs, the coolers, the box of winter gear. Out and back twice a year. Waist to shoulder height, where a loaded tote comes down without a ladder and without a bad back.
- Heavy and dull. Paint, salt, the tile left over from the bathroom, the tools. Low and deep, on the decks nearest the floor, because weight is easiest where you do not have to lift it.
One more thing worth saying plainly. I am not here to sort your memory bins and I am not going to ask you what is in them. That is a job for a rainy Sunday and it is nobody elses business. What I can do is build the thing that makes it possible, because you cannot sort a pile that has nowhere to go. Get the wall built first. The sorting gets much easier when every bin has a home and you can read the label on the end of it.
If the sorting side is really what you are after, I do that too on garage and basement organization jobs, and the utility and storage room work is the same build in a smaller room.
How it works
Show me your basement on your phone, from your basement
You do not clean up first. You do not take an afternoon off. About 10 minutes and you have a real number.
Pick a time
Tell me your town, what you want shelves in, and a couple of day and time windows that work for you.
Quick video call
We hop on a short video call. Show me the space and rough measurements on your phone. That is the whole visit.
Get your price
I price the job right there on the call. No salesman in your house, no waiting a week for a proposal.
Straight answers
What Munster homeowners ask me about their basement
Is the before and after photo on this site really a basement in Munster?
It is. Same wall, same house, same afternoon, right here in town. I did not stage it and I did not move the pile in the corner out of shot. There are companies in this category using stock photos of showrooms in other states. That one is a job I did.
How do you get 8 foot lumber and plywood down my basement stairs?
That is my problem, not yours, and it is a normal part of every basement job. I plan the cuts around the stairwell and the turn at the bottom before install day, which is one of the things I am looking at on the video call when you walk me down the steps. Basements with a tight turn just mean more of the work happens in pieces.
Half our basement is finished and half is not. Can you just do the unfinished side?
Yes, and that is a very common Munster layout. The finished side has drywall and a use already. The unfinished side is where the furnace, the water heater and the pile live. I build on the bare side, usually against the wall that backs onto the finished room, so none of it is in your sightline from the rec room.
Does building around the column and the low ductwork make it a bigger job?
It changes the layout more than it changes the work. A duct crossing a bay costs that bay some height, and the steel column breaks a long run into two. Both of those are drawn before I cut anything, so they do not turn into a surprise on install day. What actually moves the number is how much wall you are covering and how many tiers fit under your joists. You get the real figure on the call.
Can you build around the laundry and the utility sink?
Yes. Washer, dryer, the utility sink, the folding space you actually use. In a lot of these houses the laundry corner is the one part of the basement that already works, so I stay out of it and put a shorter run above or beside it for detergent, cleaning supplies and the linens. Clearance to pull the machines out stays clear.
We are finishing part of the basement next year. Should the shelving go in before or after?
Before, almost always. The shelving is what gets the floor empty enough for anyone to work down there, and it gives you somewhere to put the contents of the room while it is being built. Tell me on the call which wall is going to get framed and I will keep the shelving off it.
Our basement takes a little water after a big storm. Does that rule out wood?
Not in most Munster basements, because nothing in this build is sitting in the water. The bottom deck starts up off the slab, the frame hangs on the wall studs, and air moves behind and underneath it. A wet inch on the floor stays a wet inch on the floor. If yours regularly takes real standing water, say so on the call and I will be straight with you about how high the bottom deck needs to start.
Related reading
More on this, in plain English
The questions I get asked most, written down so you can read them before you ever call me.
How to Keep Basement Storage Off the Floor
How to keep basement storage off the floor in a basement that takes water: why cardboard on concrete fails, why sealed bins win, and why elevation bea.
Read itHow to Clear Out the Basement You Have Been Avoiding
A no shame method for clearing out a basement you have avoided for years: short sessions, four boxes, sentimental items last, and storage decided last.
Read itHow Does a Free Virtual Estimate Work?
A free virtual estimate takes about 10 minutes. Book a time, show Ray the garage or basement on a video call with rough measurements, and get your pri.
Read itBook it
Let me price your Munster basement on a quick video call
Walk me down your own stairs on your phone, pile and all, and I will give you a real number before we hang up. Most basements here go in and get finished in a day.