The Ceiling Grid and the Case of the Problem Can Lights

I began connecting the ceiling grid yesterday in the workout room. I laid it all out so that I would have equal length short tiles on each side and everything would be perfectly even.
I started out by installing the wall brackets perpendicular to the floor joists and using my new air powered staple gun to connect them to the joists. Then I installed the other 2 walls making them level with the others. That went pretty smoothly.

Then I began the process of hooking up the track runners and the cross tees. Basically you hang a track then connect the cross tees (23" pieces) to it and then connect the next track. I snapped a chalk line across the floor joists and connected my first track using the staple gun. From there I attached the cross tees into the marked locations and then I went to put the 2nd track in but found that the first can light I ran into is right dead in the track location.

Ok, yank out the nails holding it in place, get some new nails and move it over a foot so it's in the middle of 2 tracks and between the cross tees. What a pain in the butt that was... but, I got it done and continued on putting in track, then cross tees, then track, etc until I got to the other side of the room where once again the can light was right dead in the track location. At that point I threw down my tools and went upstairs to watch basketball.

One key component to hanging the track is to make sure that the first notch is the right distance from the wall for the width of the tile you want. For instance, I want 20" tiles on those sides so I cut the track so that my first notch is at 20". Then you install the track. It ends with a 12" run from the last notch so you need to connect another piece to it starting with the 12" run from the start of the other piece to give it the 24" gap. It's not hard once you get that into your noodle.

I'll continue on next weekend. Hopefully I can finish the workout room then.

Finished Wainscoting

I finally finished installing the wainscoting today. I used Liquid Nails and tacked them in a few places with my finish nailer. I used shims along the bottom to set them all to the same height.

Tricky part was getting the electrical outlets just right. Needed to make sure that I didn't make the cutouts too big because you need to unscrew the tabs and make sure they are on the outside of the wainscoting so the cover will be flush.

Here are some pictures. Next up is the ceiling, then carpet and trim and I'll be done (sort of)!

DirecTV fun

My Directv HD DVR arrived Saturday afternoon. This was a replacement for the stand alone HD receiver and SD tivo boxes that I had previously. Took the old HD receiver and moved it to our bedroom and moved the other 2 boxes to the basement to be hooked up later.

I thought it would go easily.... however.

I had to quickly reroute a couple coax lines before the installer showed up (he was coming between 1 and 5). I also had to hook up a 5x8 multiswitch that would allow me to take 4 satellite inputs and 1 antenna input and route the signals to 8 different devices.

Once I got all that done I hooked up the old HD receiver we had to our 26" JVC HD LCD tv in the bedroom. I ended up being ready for the installer by 1:00.

He showed up at 3:30... That's when I screwed up. I told him "this will be simple, just have to hook up the new box and turn it on." Fatal mistake. One of the satellite tuners couldn't get a signal, which meant bad coax somewhere along the line. First, I realized the line I was using to carry the antenna and satellite signal together (you can do this and separate the signals again using a diplexer) was RG-59, not RG-6, which can't carry both signals. Ok, we switched so that the 2nd line did that instead. Oops, no signal on that line. Down to the basement, replace connectors, still nothing. Turned out to be the coax coming from the wall to the box. Replaced, and everything was ok.

So, I thought. Now, I have a very, very week antenna signal (for picking up the local HD channels over the air). I used to have a direct line for that and now I was trying to use the multiswitch and diplexer method. Ok, I tried taking it out of the switch and combine it with one of the outputs using a diplexer in the basement. Better, but still iffy. Not like I had before. Only one solution, run another line. Sunday morning I got up and ran that line and everything is back to normal. Only downside is that now I only have that antenna signal in the living room, which means no HD local channels in the bedroom, just the local channels coming from the dish. Oh well, don't watch that much tv in there anyway and by mid next year all the local channels will be available in HD over the dish so I'll be able to get rid of the antenna then.

Needless to say I didn't get a whole lot else done on the basement. I did manage to put up 4 more panels on the wall. I was messing with the electrical outlets to pull them out a little farther so they would be flush with the beadboard and forgot to do the one thing my brother reminded me to do... turn off the power! Wow, couple zaps from those babies had me jumping up and down. I ended up running out of liquid nails. I still have a short piece on the long wall and one more wall that will take 3 pieces to finish. Probably finish that tomorrow and then I'll start on the ceiling.