Because our floor slopes towards a center drain the ceiling heights vary. At the lowest point it is 79 inches because of a low doorway. Otherwise it slopes from 87 to 83 inches tall. We will loose part of that when we install a drop ceiling just to hide all the plumbing & electrical wires. I would much rather have a drywall ceiling...but with 75 year old plumbing drywall is just SCREAMING for a leak. I'd rather replace a couple of stained tiles than tear out a 4 x 8 foot stretch of ceiling.
nice! We want to convert our basement too but we will have to dig out to make the ceilings higher. Your basement is nice and open- ours is borderline crammed, which begs the question where will it all go when we have a finished basement?
Don't think we don't have a storage issue. Right now it's all in the garage. L refused to even bring it in the house when we bought the place for fear it would over-take the basement and we would never get the work done on it we need. The garage on the other hand is just waiting for our block's annual rummage sale/block party in the fall. Then I think Good Will will get a fair portion as well. I figure if it's been boxed up and not be needed for a year...I don't really need it at all.
That is an incredible amount of space. If you can pull that off, it will really add a lot to your house. Being 6'4" my first thought is about ceiling height. I'm not sure I would be comfortable down there. You should also really think about the sound system in the media room. Do your research and make sure you do it right, or the low ceilings could be a problem in there as well. I have a lot of usable space in my attic, and it has a full stairwell up to it, so that is where I plan on the media room going - sometime next decade.