Week 3 begins

All the drywall with the exception of the backside of one wall has been hung. I'm covering the back of the long wall of the pub room as I have time, it's not a big deal. All the corner beads are in place and my brother has mudded and taped most of the joints and corner beads.

I spent the weekend putting the first layer of mud over the screw holes. Each one needs three coats with 24 hours to dry between them. This week will be all about prepping the walls.

On a related note, my wife decided that we should change our master bathroom some. We bought a new light fixture and framed mirror and I put those in yesterday as well after she touched up the paint. She's still looking for new towell bars to match. I love it when she adds secondary projects to my main one so I don't have any time to relax! :)

We did find a new wall sconce for the top of the basement stairs that will replace the plain bulb there. We won't put it in yet though, still need to repaint that area too.

We also looked at ceiling tiles (again Menards much cheaper than Home Depot). We just need to decide on which ones give us what we need for looks and sound control. While we were at Menards we compared plank wainscoting with the 4' panels and decided that the planks would look much nicer despite the added cost. I estimated about $300 to do 3 walls in the pub room. Panels would have been about $60. I just think it would have looked cheap.

Ok, need more coffee, I was up most of the night thinking about the basement... not a good way to start the week.

Drywall Installation, Day 3

About 95% complete with hanging the drywall now. Still need to finish the closet under the stairs and the backside of the two walls bordering the laundry area. Here are some more pictures I took last night.

Coming down the stairs.


Closet areas at by the landing.







Down the hallway into the big closet by the landing.


Looking into the workout room from the hall.





In the workout room looking back out.


In the workout room.





Closet under stairs.

Drywall Installation, Day 2

Pub room done, hallway done. Workout room and closets are left. Should be completed today or early tomorrow. Here are some pictures I took last night. First one is looking down the hallway into the pub room.

The next one shows the soffit, looking in from the entrance to the room.



This one is from the back left corner looking back towards the entrance and the area where I'll build the entertainment center.

From the same location, looking across the room.





From the back right corner looking back towards the entrance.

Drywall Installation, Day 1

The delivery guy only needed about 90 minutes to move all the drywall to the basement. Once he was done my brother got started putting them up. When I got home from work he had completed 2 full walls and half of 2 others. I'm estimating him being done with that part late tomorrow.

Drywall arrives

Menards delivery guy shows up at 10:45 with the drywall, alone, to deliver it to the basement. Apparently, the $100 he gets from me isn't enough to have a helper so he'll be moving those 50 sheets, 2 at a time, into the basement by himself. I'm thinking that's at least 2 hours worth of work.

Insulation Complete

My brother completed the insulation (outer walls and ceiling) and heating ducts today. Here are a couple pictures. Drywall gets delivered Tuesday morning.









To recap, items completed:

• framing
• lighting
• electrical
• phone/coax
• heat vents
• insulation

Next up: Drywall

Week 2

Just a quick update of where we stand. Checked my finances and I think I can afford one more week which should get us through drywall.

As of Friday, my brother had finished all the lighting and 99% of the electrical. He's just finishing up a couple outlets this morning. He is also putting in 2 heating diffusers off of the ventilation running between the floor joists.

Saturday I went and picked up all the insulation. Got R13 unfaced batts for the outside walls and 40' rolls of kraft faced R11 for the ceiling (for sound control). Sunday I went and ordered all the drywall. 50 sheets of it, which will be delivered Tuesday morning. I paid an extra $100 to have them deliver it into the basement. I thought that was really high but it'll save my brother a days worth of just moving drywall so it's worth it.

Yesterday I also ran phone and cable to the 2 rooms. I also ordered a 5x8 Multi-switch to be able to distribute the 4 incoming lines of Satellite tv (DirecTV) plus the terrestrial antenna line into 8 outputs. When this arrives I will need to adjust the lines I currently have running directly to the living room.

So far, I've spent just about $2,000 on materials.

Framing Day 3

My brother finished up the last couple walls and the closet under the stairs today. We discussed the electrical and lighting and I sent him on his way to go purchase the wiring, lights, outlets, switches, etc that he'll need. Hopefully he'll be able to get that done in the next few days as well. He's been motoring right along ahead of pace.

Here are some pictures of the framing (there are still some tools lying around, you'll have to imagine they're not there). First picture is from the top of the stairs.



The 2nd picture is turning left at the bottom of the stairs and looking into the workout room through the doorway.





The next shot is another angle looking into the workout room.








Here is the view down the hallway into the pub room.








Here's a view from the entrance to the pub room looking to the right.







Closet under the stairs.








View from the door to the laundry area back into the pub room.






View from the back right corner looking back towards the entrance and closet under the stairs.








View looking straight on to where the built in entertainment center (on right) and bookshelves (on left) will be.





Final picture is looking back down the hallway towards the closet by the bottom of the stairs (adjacent to workout room) from the entrance to the pub room.

Framing Day 2

On Day 2 I left my brother on his own as I had to go to work. I expected him to get about half of what was left done and he had that much done by lunch! By the end of the day he was almost done. The only things left are the wall under the beam that splits the two rooms and the two little walls off of that where I'm going to build a custom entertainment center and bookshelves. I will take some more pictures tonight of the completed framing. Looks like we'll have plenty of wood to take back to Menards. Not sure how I totally screwed up the estimate, but oh well...

I took some time last night to mark where I want lights (all can lights) and where I want the electrical outlet. Once he finishes framing I told him to go ahead and figure out how much wiring and stuff he needs and to keep going. I budgeted him for an entire week, might as well keep him going. Maybe he'll be able to get through the wiring and insulation this week and drywall would be just around the corner. I think the drywalling is going to be a 2 man job on the weekends.

It's coming together!

Framing Day 1

We got off to a decent start Saturday. We began with the soffit over the heating ducts and gas pipe and were able to get 2 walls completed.
The first picture shows most of the soffit which is in the pub room.
The second one is from the back corner of the workout room back towards the stairs, showing the doorway.
The third picture is from the opposite corner in the pub room looking back through the new hallway.
The last one is from the pub room looking back into the workout room.

Framing begins Saturday!

My brother and I picked up the lumber today. $539 for 197 boards!
We loaded up his trailer, had lunch and unloaded it into the basement in under 3 hours. We are set to go. Get a load of that wood!

Kiss the gym goodbye

Spent a couple hours last night taking the universal gym apart. Wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. My brother's friend is going to take it off my hands. Only thing left to prep is to cover everything in plastic to protect it from the dust, etc that will get generated during construction.

I put together my materials list last night. We'll be picking up the lumber on Friday afternoon. Here's a quick look at the lumber materials and estimated costs:

Item	Quantity	Cost Per	Total Cost
2x4 Studs	125	$2.30	$287.50
2x4 Plates 8'	40	$2.80	$112.00
2x4 Plates 10'	15	$3.50	$52.50
2x6 Studs	15	$4.50	$67.50
2x6 Plates 10'	2	$5.00	$10.00
Total			$529.50

Construction still scheduled to begin Monday.

Almost ready to begin framing

Yesterday my brother brought over his trailer and we filled it, made a trip to Goodwill, then filled it again with garbage which he'll take to the dump today. The only thing left to do is to get some tarps to cover everything (easy part) and to take apart the universal gym and get it out of there (hard part). When we bought that thing I figured it would be easy to put together. 4 days later I had it completed! There were nearly 200 bolts and a couple dozen pulleys. What a pain. Well, now it is so heavy and big it can't be moved and even if it could, it wouldn't fit back through a doorway later... so, I'm planning on giving it away once I take it apart. I don't really feel like putting it back together again.
Here are some pictures of the space now. It's hard to believe it looks like this now, I'm still in shock. We're planning to go get all the lumber on Friday so he can get started framing.

Cleanup has begun

We spent most of the day Monday tossing everything from old Christmas trees (fake, of course) to camping equipment. In the end we had filled 14 contractor sized garbage bags, broken down 20+ large cardboard boxes and readied another 15 things for Goodwill.

Looks like my brother will come over Sunday to pick up everything in his truck and trailer and deliver it all to the appropriate locations on Monday. Can't do anything on Saturday because it's the big family Christmas at my aunt and uncle's place.

Here's a picture of the storage area, now organized.









I also scanned in my drawing of the top view layout of the floor plan so far. Being as anal as I am I also used a 3D architect tool (which pretty much sucked) to build the space in 3 dimensions. I'll scan in some of the shots I printed out from there when I have time.