8. Reduce noise. Your newly finished basement has the potential to affect the rest of your house with noise, particularly if you create a media or play room. Installing sound insulation into the basement ceiling can help. Higuera also suggests using RC channel, which is a long piece of metal shaped like a hat when viewed from the end. Without a sound break, sound travels through the wood right into the drywall. The RC channel is installed across the joists before the drywall. When it’s time for the drywall to be attached, it rests on the RC channel instead of the wood joists, reducing noise transmission. Another option? Surface-mount lights versus can lights. “Can lights tend to carry noise, so use surface-mount lights if your ceiling is high enough,” Higuera says.