Oh Miss April, I would love the opportunity to have 2 rooms at my disposal. As it is, I've taken over the family room off our kitchen. The living room and den are too close to the front door and traipsing thru to the bathroom problems. Besides, I can close the gate to keep the "fur babies" out if I want to. I would love to have the basement area of our home, but that isn't possible unless we move our bedroom to the 2nd story. I'm not that hip on climbing stairs that much. As far as lighting is concerned, They make lots of different styles of lighting so I wouldn't have a problem with that. In my "family room/sew cave, I have 2 sets of windows so I currently have lots of natural lighting, but would willingly give it up for more space any day. As far as water goes, we've had water in our basement at least 5 times since we moved here. I've learned that anything you want to keep put in waterproof containers. JMHO, and hope that this helps. Hugs g/f ;)