My Basement Finishing Project

New flooring

2008-06-24T08:27:00.002-05:00

Well, after a turbulent month things are starting to get back to some semblance of normality. Drexel Interiors came out Thursday and Friday and put down my new basement flooring. We decided to go with an inexpensive vinyl flooring instead of doing the laminate hardwood again. We got something that can withstand a little water on it without ruining it, just in case. It has a wood pattern and looks fairly similar to the old flooring.

After letting it set for a couple days we went down Sunday and put everything back to it's original place. The only thing that's not the same is the fireplace surround. The base had gotten ruined (particle board soaks up water -> mold) so I ripped it off. I'll build a new one some day. Right now it's just sitting on the floor without the base.

I took a few pictures this morning. Here they are.

The Flood

2008-04-28T08:41:00.003-05:00

I went in thinking that our basement would never flood. That only happens to other people. In 8 years in the house we've had some hellacious storms and never had a drop of water down there.

Well, that has changed now. Friday night I went down there and found about a quarter inch of water covering everything. I got it cleaned up but had a hockey game so I left thinking I would fix everything in the morning.

That was a mistake. By Saturday morning it had REALLY flooded and now the "floating floor" was really a floating floor, felt like walking on a water bed.

It flooded one more time before I finally got it under control but the damage had been done. All the flooring was ruined. I spent the rest of Saturday until about 10pm tearing all the flooring out and taking it to the curb. None of it was salvageable.

I don't think I want to go through that again so now we're thinking about painting the floor with an epoxy based paint. You can get some cool colors and do some interesting things so that it won't even look like concrete. For example, check out some of the work these people do (local to Madison). Artisan Designs, LLC.

I still have some other ruined stuff to take out to the curb but my back and legs are so sore they're going to have to wait.

DVD Closet

2007-04-01T15:57:00.000-05:00

I spent the weekend converting the small closet at the bottom of the stairs into a DVD storage area. Here are some pictures.

Trim complete

2006-10-02T14:28:00.000-05:00

Finished the trim in the workout room this weekend.
Only things left:
- putty the nail holes in the workout room and the stairway.
- touch up paint
- set up equipment and tv in workout room
- 2 closet doors
- built in bookcase/shelving in pub room

Getting close to the first poker party!

Carpet Installation

2006-09-26T09:31:00.000-05:00

The guys from Home Depot installed the carpet for the stairs and workout room this morning. Now I can finish the trim work. Here are a couple pictures.

Also, I bought a new 57" Mitsubishi DLP (1080p) tv for the living room and will be moving my current 55" Mitsubishi rear projection (1080i) tv to the pub room. Not sure how I'm going to get it down there but I will!

Pub Room - Guinness Style

2006-09-18T18:15:00.000-05:00

We were able to get all our Guinness stuff hung this weekend and I was also able to hook up the tv/entertainment center too.
Here are some updated pictures. I also updated the overall cost of the project as well. We've had some overruns!

Pub room looking good

2006-09-10T19:08:00.000-05:00

Well, this took a whole week of vacation but we finally got it looking like something. The workout room and the stairs are going to be carpeted, we're just waiting on home depot to do that. Only thing left in the pub room is hooking up the tv, hanging the pictures and building the built-in bookcase.

I'll update the cost once I've added up this week's purchases; they were numerous.

Workout Room Ceiling Completed

2006-04-14T09:48:00.000-05:00

I finally finished doing the ceiling tiles in the workout room. I'm finding as the weather improves I'm not so interested in being in the basement so much... Not sure when I'll ever get done now. Maybe it'll start snowing again.

Here are a couple pictures.

The Ceiling Grid and the Case of the Problem Can Lights

2006-03-20T11:15:00.000-06:00

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

2006-03-11T15:05:00.000-06:00

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

2006-03-06T09:27:00.000-06:00

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.

Started on Wainscoting

2006-02-28T15:49:00.000-06:00

I did the wainscoting for one 6' wall last night. Wasn't too bad. Had to cut out part of it for the electrical outlet and trim another one down to 2'. I used shims under them to make them level across the top. Used Liquid Nails to secure them to the wall. Hopefully that held and they're not laying on the floor now. If it didn't, I'll use the new nail gun to pop a couple nails into it to hold. Took about an hour but I was super careful in lining everything up. Probably go faster now that I know what to do. The next wall is much longer (18') so I'm thinking I will determine the correct height at both ends and snap a chalk line on the wall so I can line them up easily.

All about the money

2006-02-27T09:08:00.000-06:00

This weekend we went and purchased all the ceiling tiles and CeilingMAX grid for the basement. Total cost was about $800. I calculated that we needed 109 2x2 tiles. I hope I overestimated and can take some back. They were towards the low end at $1.94 each. Of course, that was Saturday and on Sunday I saw that they went on sale. They'll give me some money back though.

I also decided to buy beadboard for the wainscoting. We went pretty cheap here as it is only the basement. 10 sheets of 32" x 48" at $7.77 each.

I'm still not sure which I want to do first. I think the wainscoting I would prefer to get out of the way before I start on the ceiling.

This weekend's plans

2006-02-24T08:12:00.000-06:00

I haven't done a heck of a lot of work this week. One thing I did get finished was to connect the phone and cable lines in both rooms and put the outlet covers on. I'm noticing lots of areas that need repainting too. Some runs, some white coming through, etc. I think I'll wait till further down the road before I do all the touch ups. I'm pretty sure I'm going to do more damage moving things into the rooms.

My plan for the weekend is to get 2 things accomplished:

1) Measure and buy the beadboard for wainscoting 2 walls in the pub room. I found 4x8 sheets of 1/4" that matches our stain perfectly. It's cheaper and won't require any additional work other than cutting them. I can get 3 32" high pieces out of each sheet. I think 3 sheets will be enough for those 2 walls. That's only about $90, compared to the $400 that it would cost for tongue and groove 3" boards.

2) Determine the grid layout for the ceiling tiles and go buy it. Have to figure out exactly how I want the tiles laid out and measure for the grid system. Once I have that I can start attaching the grid to the joists.

Weekend Update

2006-02-20T07:26:00.000-06:00

Today marks the start of our 7th week of work (we started cleanup on January 2nd).

This weekend I was able to spend some time working on it. I started Friday working on the 1x12's that go between the stairs and the wall. Had to cut out the angles, which I had fun with (who remembers all that 10th grade geometry stuff????). After I got the pieces cut out I stained them, ended up doing 3 coats to get the color right. That was my first mistake. Using an oil based stain in an enclosed house when it's 10 below outside is not a good idea. The lingering smell just about made me sick. It was all I could smell from Friday through Sunday morning. Anyway, by Saturday afternoon I could put the polyurethane coats on (two) and by Sunday I could install them. I got to use my new toy too! It's a Porter-Cable compressor with a finish nailer, brad nailer and crown stapler. Sure is nice to be able to hold something in place and just fire nails into it, no more smashing of the thumb! I love it.

Saturday I started working on the in wall speakers. First I had to paint the frames and the grills to match the wall colors. I have 6 speakers in all. 2 for the workout room and 4 for the pub room where I'll have Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. After the paint dried I started in the workout room and got both of those speakers installed. It wasn't hard. They provided me with a template and once I had the placement right (beware of studs!) I just took my drill and drilled holes in the four corners and use my jigsaw to cut out the drywall. The speaker has 6 mounting brackets on it. You just turn the screws on the front to tighten the brackets against the back of the drywall, then pop the grill on and you're done.

Before I could finish the other speakers, my brother came over and we went to work on the 2 36" doors (workout room door and pub room to laundry room door). It took a little over an hour I guess to hang both of them. Again, nice to have that nailer, we used 2 1/2" 16 gauge nails to secure the door to the frame, using 3 sets of shims on each side to get it square and plum. We installed the hardware on the workout room door just to make sure it works. I'll have to pull the doors off later for staining. We quit after that as the rest of the family showed up for mom's birthday.

On Sunday I went down and finished the 4 speakers in the pub room and hooked up my stereo to it and they all worked! Shocking... haha.

After that I finally got out the shop vac and went over the floor really well. It was so dusty from the drywall, I felt like I was constantly inhaling it. I began working on the cable and phone jacks (only wiring I have left) but ran out of time. I'll take some more pictures when I've got those completed.

Painting Complete

2006-02-13T06:47:00.000-06:00

I spent the weekend painting. Everything except one wall in the workout room is a color called "Utterly Beige" from Sherwin Williams. The one wall is "Badger Red", a formula created by Sherwin Williams. I also put in our wall sconce at the top of the basement stairs (last picture) and got most of the outlet and light switch covers on. The area that looks like I forgot to paint is where our wainscoting is going so I didn't bother painting there. I forgot to clean the lens from last time so I'm still getting spots on the pictures. I apologize for that, I will re-take these tonight.

Pre-painting pictures

2006-02-09T18:50:00.000-06:00

Here are some pictures of the rooms after my brother finished. I will begin painting this afternoon (hopefully). Hover over each image for a description.

Ready to Paint!

2006-02-09T08:04:00.000-06:00

My brother finished up the final touches of spraying texture and cleaned up yesterday. It looks awesome, he did great work. I didn't have time to take pictures last night. I will take some tonight. I plan to start painting tomorrow afternoon. I still have some cleanup to do on the stairway (dog hair and cobwebs mostly, as well as some screw holes to fix).

It's really looking like something now, pretty exciting!

Texture Day

2006-02-06T07:44:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the lack of pictures lately, been pretty busy.

Today is the day my brother sprays the primer/texture on the walls. Once he finishes that most of his involvement will be done. Just in the nick of time too as our money is running low.

We purchased the paint we'll be using this weekend from Sherwin Williams. We got a discount because we had bought our paint from them initially and I guess they remember things like that. We bought a color called "Utterly Beige" for the majority of the basement. We have this color in our bedroom and master bath and really like it. We decided that we would also do an accent wall in the workout room. Sherwin Williams already had a formula for Badger Red which is what we wanted since much of the theme of the room will be University of Wisconsin athletics. We bought a gallon of that and 5 gallons of the beige.

I probably won't get to the painting until Friday afternoon/Saturday morning. I'll get some pictures of the walls post-texture and also the new utility sink my brother put in Friday (works great).

Drywall Update

2006-02-01T07:40:00.000-06:00

We're getting closer. The 2nd coat of mud went on yesterday. One more coat today (and maybe tomorrow as I have to bowl tonight) and it'll be ready for sanding.

For sanding, we bought a device that sucks the dust into a 5 gallon bucket of water, powered by a shop vac. It's supposed to cut down 95% of the dust so it doesn't permeate throughout the house. Check back later for the results...

My brother will probably be spraying texture (sand tek) onto the walls Monday. That will most likely end his full time involvement. We're going to paint after that. I'll probably ask him to come back to help me hang the doors after we're done painting and maybe again when I do the wainscoting, just depends on how much I feel I can do myself.

I'll post more pictures once the drywall preparation is finished.

Week 3 begins

2006-01-30T07:36:00.000-06:00

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

2006-01-26T18:19:00.000-06:00

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

2006-01-25T17:05:00.000-06:00

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

2006-01-25T07:34:00.000-06:00

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

2006-01-24T11:13:00.000-06:00

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

2006-01-23T18:38:00.000-06:00

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

2006-01-23T07:28:00.000-06:00

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

2006-01-18T17:47:00.000-06:00

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

2006-01-18T07:39:00.000-06:00

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

2006-01-15T11:08:00.000-06:00

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!

2006-01-13T17:01:00.000-06:00

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

2006-01-11T07:34:00.000-06:00

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

2006-01-09T07:56:00.000-06:00

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

2006-01-03T17:58:00.000-06:00

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.

Before Pictures

2005-12-23T14:55:00.000-06:00

Ok, here's what I was promising. The before shots.

The first picture is from the top step looking down. You can tell it's a mess already.

This next shot is at the bottom of the stairs turning the corner into the "workout" area. Not shown is the pile of hockey equipment at my feet. This area will still be a workout area but it will be nice!

Still in the workout area, the beam and posts separate the two rooms. The idea here is two walls enclosing the posts on each side with an archway between them. I'm not going to put a door in, no real point in it.

Still in the workout room, a view from the other side of the room.

Inside the pub room looking back towards the furnace, washing machine, etc. The water softener (blue box with black lid on the left) marks the extent of the pub room. The goal here is to make the room big enough for a pool table but yet leave enough unfinished area for storage, etc.

This next photo shows the area under the stairs. This will become storage and will be closed off with a door. The far right edge of the stairs is where the pub room wall will end. You can see we'll need some place to store our suitcases!

This last photo shows the view from where the door from the pub room to the unfinished section will be looking back towards the workout room. I sure hope I can fit a pool table down here...

Stay tuned for more pictures as cleanup begins next week.

Initial Estimate

2005-12-21T07:57:00.000-06:00

My brother came over yesterday and we walked through a few ideas and he took measurements. Called me back last night. Not bad, only about $650 for materials (lumber, drywall, insulation, vapor barrier). He's itching to get started and even volunteered to help with the initial cleanup. We have a lot to do before he can do any work though and it won't happen for at least another week.

Stay tuned for the ugly before pictures!

Getting Started

2005-12-14T10:59:00.000-06:00

I am getting ready to start a basement finishing project in which I will attempt to convert a huge mess into something more appealing.

I will share the trials and tribulations of this project as well as lots of pictures along the way.

The plan is to create 3 separate spaces within our L shaped basement. Area one will be a pub room, with a pool table, darts, satellite tv, bar. I'm thinking lots of Guiness signs, golf photo's, etc. The 2nd area will be a workout room with universal gym, treadmill, bike, etc and a couple lcd tv's on the walls. All sound and video for this room will be supplied by the a/v system in the pub room. The 3rd area will remain unfinished. It will consist of storage, workbench, tools, washer/dryer, furnace, etc.

I hope to use my brother as much as possible to help me out but plan to do most myself. I sure hope this doesn't take 2 years to finish.

First step: Clean out the crap! We have so much garbage down there that it will take us weeks just to throw out all the stuff we don't need so we have room to work.