Increasing Ceiling Height in a DC Rowhome

[Puja Matta]

I am working on renovating a row house in DC with a general contractor. We want to go from our current basement height of 6'9" to 8' or above. Our contractor shared 2 options for how we could do this. He said we could either underpin the basement, or move the floor joists on the 2 levels above to increase the basement height and possibly add a bit more height on the upper levels since we can use 3-4' from the attic. I'm not too familiar with either approach, so wanted to understand what folks generally do and recommend.