46erjoe wrote:

My new ranch home has a full unfinished basement which I plan to turn
into a family room, storage room, bedroom and bath. No matter how I
arrange the floor plan though, I will end up with 3 steel support
posts running down the middle of the family room.

Any ideas on how to make them look like part of the design? They can't
be concealed of course, but maybe somebody out there has come up with
a creative way of using their presence in a basement family room.

Thanks.

If you can't manage to bury the columns in a wall, a few ideas a

- Attach some coat hooks and call it an overgrown coat rack.

- Attach one or two TV mount arms off it and hang your TV (CRT or LCD)
there.

- Wrap the column on all sides with media storage i.e. CD/DVD racks,
magazine racks, etc.

- Build a round table around the column and put some bar stools around
it.

- Put a small refrigerator with a microwave on top of it against the
column.

- Hang a hammock between two of the columns or a column and a wall.

Another thing you can do is investigate with an architect or engineer to
see if you can sandwich the existing beam with steel plates on both
sides (cheap and easy) to allow you to remove the most offensive of the
support columns.

Some combination of those ideas will probably make the best of the
situation.

Pete C.