basement bedroom questions for King county/kirkland/wa investor

[Chen Su]

Hi, 

I am brand new to being a landlord and in the process of purchasing a house in the south Juanita area, Kirkland to rent out. I have a lot of questions about its basement. How to be legal compliant when renting the house out what makes sense in term of market appeal. Apologize this is a long post.

The house has a daylight basement. It has a very bright large living room with patio door. The living room lead to  another large room (let's call it room 1) via a French door. Room 1 has a external door that leads to back yard/can be locked from outside. It also connects to two rooms (room 2 and room 3). Room 2 is unfinished and a walk-in closet size and currently has a very nicely professional stalled sauna in it and shelves on the side, along with water heater, furnace. We plan to finish it so it can function as a walkin close/spa.

Room 3 is trickier, because it is large enough to be a bedroom but also small enough can also be considered as a huge walk in closet with windows. For it to be considered as a bedroom some modification needs to be done. It has two windows, the large one has the egress size, but it is only 4 inches higher. To make it a legal bedroom, we are wondering who can we contact to make sure that is it ok for us to raise the floor under the area for 4 inches to be legal compliant? If so, how big of the area need to be raised? I tried to call the Kirkland city building department, but they are too busy to answer my phone. The window is at a corner and there is a small nook right next to a small closer. So another option is to put a permanent window seat and have some storage shelves build in to make it look like a feature rather than a cheap fix. Again, how do we make sure that this is legal compliant before we do so?

Another option we have is to call room 1 a bedroom (technically it qualifies since it has two walk in closet, two egress: external door and the french door lead to living room). In that case to prevent renter use it as a bedroom, do we need to put in shelving to make it look like a closet?    Which option makes more sense in terms of rental market appeal and legal perspective? Who should we contact to be sure that we are legal compliant for the room 3 as bedroom situation? Thank you for your inputs!