[Nyah]

Over the last year, we have completely gutted our basement and done the following things:

- not only did we take out the walls, floors and ceilings, we had to strip all the electrical that was ran in the basement because they didn't do anything correctly on the original development
- we had a leak in the foundation, so that had to be fixed
- had the furnace & hot water tank moved about a meter from where it was (Edit: we also replaced those w/ high efficiency stuff)
- had the water main moved (which was surprisingly easy & cheap)
- had a professional plan drawn up by a friend for free for permits
- two friends who were electricians came in & ran new electrical (to code)
- framed, drywalled, mud & taped, sanded
- painted
- new bathroom installed

A lot of these things were done by friends or friends of friends, and we're probably right around $25,000, and that's not including carpet, doors or trim. The argument that the cost should be the same as parts isn't really accurate in my mind either. For example: the guy who mudded/taped/sanded our whole basement spent about $400-$500 on supplies, but it took him about a week to do the work because of the layers & drying process. Same with electrical, the supplies aren't that cheap, but they're not ridiculously priced either. It's the time it takes to run everything.

Overall, I think that when everything is finished and the basement is done (fingers are crossed for 3 weeks), we'll be around $30,000. And we did a lot of it ourselves.