It's a basement and the starting point is rough.
There are a lot of technical issues, beyond my area of expertise. What happens is the contractor tells you what you can do and you work from there. So he came with his subs. Then he brought the structural engineer.
See all those poles? They hold up the house. They are also in the way of any sort of seating area or play area. There's HVAC venting and the mechanical area with its associated code issues. Since you need three feet access from electrical and plumbing, we'll create a wall of doors 3 feet out from the mecanical.It will eat up a lot of space, but on the upside, it will also allow us to square up the remaining usable space.
The engineer tells us that with metal beams instead of wood, we can lose all of the poles, except two. One we'll hide in near the perimeter in a newly created closet. The other will get hidden behind a door in the mechanical section we are closing off. This will allow us to open up the space for a nice seating area with a giant TV (of course) and plenty of room for storage and a foosball or air hockey table, too. In the end, we'll have a room about 19' x 22' and it will look neat and finished and much, much better.
With the measuring done and the technical issues sorted out by the experts, we're ready to create the bathroom layout and get plans ready for the city so we can pull the permit. Time to get drafting.
This will be SOME transformation. Can't wait.