Is it ever done?
Posted by Jeffrey on Aug 1, 2005
Well, it’s been about 6 weeks or so since my last post. For those who don’t know (sorry about that…) we had a baby 5 weeks ago. Which explains why I haven’t had any time to work on the basement or post anything worthwhile. His name is Thomas and everyone is doing well, getting used to lack of sleep, diapers, car seats etc. Thomas even has his own website. (I don’t know where he finds the time to learn to type, read and blog.)So in between diaper changes and work, I managed to finally put up the sliding doors and paint them the trim color which we have used in the rest of the house.
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You can see the sliding door which hides the mess in the back of the basement. |
Like everything else in the basement, the dimensions are not standard. Which means that even though I got a 78″ door, I still had to trim off about an inch or two from the bottom to make it fit. Since they are hollow doors, I had to cut the doors and then take out the solid wood filler piece from the bottom (off the scrap piece) and then glue it back into the door. Seems like a lot of work at the time, just for these sliding doors, but at least they fit.
Once the doors were in I could finish the rest of the baseboard. And yes, finally, (for those of you that may have noticed the lack of the insulation package), I installed the sound insulation today. It seems to make a big difference even when we are on the main floor.
You can also see the bookcase/storage unit we got from Neoset.
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These hold a lot of stuff. |
We actually got all our books that were in boxes into this thing and other stuff in the units underneath like some china, binders, and other junk. We still have the back area of the basement to organize, but at least now we can close the doors and pretend that it doesn’t exist.
When we had some family over, I had a chance to ask for some help in moving the couch downstairs.
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The old couch with Winston actually not jumping on it. |
I’m glad we did it because we have Thomas’ crib/basinet/change table combo unit where that couch was on the main floor. Oh yeah, that is our dog Winston by the couch hamming it up for the camera. In the back corner we plan to put an electric fireplace and a chair for reading (yeah, as if we’ll ever get the time to do that).
And here
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On the left you can just see the bulkhead where I routed the duct for the exhaust fan. |
you can see the bathroom. I just have to patch some tile on the floor where they originally had a bulkhead for the old gas meter. It was covered in ugly cedar panels and of course it was uninsulated. I installed a light in the shower stall and with the halogen lights over the sink and fixture, it really makes a difference in the room.
So, now only a few things left to do in the bathroom but now I am finding that it is difficult to match the floor tiles, so I will have to find something that at least is close so I can get that out of the way.
At least now we can use the basement where before the whole space was only storage that made it far too easy to simply pile boxes and just turn out the light and forget about them. Now I just close the door to the back of the basement and accomplish the same thing!
How do you get 4′ x 8′ sheets of drywall into a Mazda 3?
Posted by Jeffrey on May 8, 2005
I took Friday night off working because the weather was pretty good and I didn’t want to spend the entire weekend in a dark room while the sun was shining; kinda like the past few weekends. Good thing for the most part, the weather has been crappy for the last couple of weekends. I didn’t feel like I was missing much.So on Saturday, I got down to finishing up the wall adjoining the furnace room and other bits and pieces that needed drywalling.
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Supply bulkhead is complete. Soon will start with the taping and mudding. |
These are the things that take the longest. The big sheets go up fast: they give you a sense that things are progressing. That’s good because I needed to see that before tackling the smaller stuff such as the bulkheads in the bathroom and the ones that frame in the ductwork.
Unfortunately, I needed to go to the Depot Saturday night to get a couple more sheets. I realized that when I was driving there that if a couple of years ago, I someone had told me I would be standing over a flat cart in the middle of the Home Depot parking lot on a Saturday night cutting sheets of drywall in half so I could fit them in my car, I’d have told them they were crazy. But they did fit in there (thanks to the designers of the Mazda 3), so I was able to get them back home and down to the basement before I totally ran out of steam.
Sunday we were hosting Mother’s Day at our place so I had to get some stuff done before we had to start preparing for our family arriving around 3 or 4 pm. I got the bathroom finished. I got most of the furnace wall finished. I got the supply duct bulkhead finished.
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Return air duct now enclosed. |
I got the return bulkhead finished. Or was that Saturday? It’s all a blur now, but at least most of it is done. There are only a few pieces left to do and to frame an access door for the storage area under the stairs. Then on to putting up corner bead and taping the rest of the seams in preparation for joint compound and sanding. I am hoping that the device I bought for sanding (which you hook up to the shopvac) works well so we can keep the dust down in the rest of the house. We’ll see…
Bulkhead overhead
Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 17, 2005
I finished the framing for the bulkhead and cut the largest sheet the other day. I installed about half of the sheets of plywood for the bulkhead so now you can start to see what the ceiling height will be like in that area. I have to cut all the sheets outside as there is not enough room in the basement to lay down a full sized sheet of ply. |
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Plywood on bulkhead. Yes, it will be primed and painted the same as the rest of the ceiling. |
Besides, it really creates a dust storm and I want to keep the amount of dust to a minimum in the house. Except when I tape and sand the drywall, it will be very dusty anyway. I will likely tape off the basement and shut off the furnace.
I got this new sanding head which fits on the end of your shopvac so that, in theory, the dust gets contained there. We’ll see how well it works.
So I have to finish cutting the plywood for the rest of the duct bulkhead and also build the cabinet to enclose the electrical panel which will be challenging since there are several water supply pipes, the gas line and a tie-in to the vent stack (from the basement bathroom) to contend with. It also has to be a maximum of 35″ wide to fit the module of the built-ins which are being made and will be assembled after the carpet is installed.
Sunny outside, who wants to be stuck in the basement
Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 11, 2005
So Sunday was beautiful outside so when I was given the choice about either working in the basement or going golfing, guess which one I chose?Well, I still did work in the morning, setting up for putting in the bulkhead over the ductwork, but then found I didn’t have enough 2 x 2s so I had to make a trip to the Depot. It was surprisingly busy for a Sunday morning, but I guess everyone wanted to get a start on yardwork etc.
More ducts
Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 8, 2005
Well had to resume the work in the basement because there are a few more things to do before I can start drywalling. |
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Roughed in bulkhead to contain return air duct. |
I had to frame in the stack anyway, so I figured I should combine this and the return air duct into one. The original plan suggested by the guy who did the home energy audit was to put the duct on the other side of the room, but I would have had a bump out in that wall and one on the other side, so it made more sense to combine the two.
I also have to build the bulkhead for the ductwork in the ceiling (which will probably take the better part of a week) and make sure all the inside corners for the walls have been taken care of so there is a surface for the edges of the drywall.
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Framing corners. |
I also want to finish the floor patching so this has time to cure. I think that it will look like I am making progress when the drywall goes up, although all the sanding etc does take a fair amount of time. I will need some re-inforcements to help me hang the ceiling since holding a 4 x 8 sheet of drywall on my head while I secure it to the ceiling sounds a bit difficult.
I can’t work on Saturday as this is when we have the ‘Class’ (pre-natal) all day.
I realized this week that I also have to do my taxes sometime. When will someone invent a more realistic tax form? Like this perhaps?