Originally posted by pyremind:

I thought I would be so clever and put my portal and chests and money piles down in a basement... took me a while to realize I am horribly undermining my house structure.. and it doesn't seem like adding wood beams can help since I'm still extending the house off of the bedrock. How do you do basements?

Heya, basements are EZ PZ and you can do it with wood.

Step 1: Dig a hole, dig a diggie diggie hole. The dimensions of this hole MUST BE smaller than the footprint of your home. If your home is 5x5, the hole should be 4x4. Keep the building limitations of wood in mind as you consider the size of your home and basement. As has been mentioned, you can build larger homes / basements with better (stone / iron reinforced) materials, but you can do it with wood if you stay small to start.

Step 2: Should be a part of step one, but be sure you install ladders on the wall so you can get out of your diggie diggie hole. Consider putting this ladder where you want the actual entry point to your basement.

Step 3: "Pave over" the hole you made with wood flooring. I typically like using the 1m poles to start so the foundation is raised off of the ground, then I connect the 4, 1m poles, one for each corner (but sometimes I'll add 1m poles along the sides for longer buildings such as 5x8 or 5x10). Start at one corner and start placing your wooden flooring. Repeat this until your floor is installed.

VIOLA! you now have a basement. I'm happy to run through and demo the process if you'd like. Lemme know!

Edit: After re-reading your post, it seems you want to install a basement under an existing home.. I do not advise this as the terrain can be a little unpredictable when you're digging it out. It's easy to compromise the foundation of the existing structure. You *can* make it work if you're careful, but I'd recommend building a new structure with the basement as a part of its initial design.