Saturday, December 27, 2008
Finishing Basement III
Hello.
This is installment three of me finishing my basement. Installment two is here.
As you can see from the picture below, it shows drywall, that has been primed. This picture is from the corner of the recreation room. Looking toward the back of the house. The door you see goes to my backyard.
At the time of these pictures, the drywall must be painted, flooring must be done, electric and plumbing, and also trim/doors.
This is installment three of me finishing my basement. Installment two is here.
As you can see from the picture below, it shows drywall, that has been primed. This picture is from the corner of the recreation room. Looking toward the back of the house. The door you see goes to my backyard.
At the time of these pictures, the drywall must be painted, flooring must be done, electric and plumbing, and also trim/doors.
I took two videos below, to give you a tour of the basement. I start out at the steps of the basement and turn right in the first video, and left in the second video. Sorry about the lighting, but there isn't electric lighting yet! I'll do another post to show it off when everything is done.
This video shows the bathroom, bedroom/office and ends in the closet of the bedroom/closet.
This video shows the recreation room and ends in the mechancial/ storage rooms.
Since these pictures and videos, we have painted, done electric, and grouted the tile floors. Last weekend we put some of Alex's and Dad's stuff down here, and we play all the time!
Labels: Finishing basement, home improvment
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Finishing the basement ii
Hello.
In the picture above, you can see all of the plumbing we had to do. The good people who built this house took the effort to bury a stub for a tub drain. All it took was breaking up the concrete to get to it. They also put in a 4" stub, that came out of the floor for the toilet. When my dad and I did the pluming, we were sure there was no such thing as a 4" toilet flange (the thing that the toilet attaches to) , so we dug everything up and replaced it with 3". The little rag on the floor is where the toilet will go. The vanity will be on your left. I also had to run fresh water to the bathroom, which was probably a 2 day job. Finishing basements is tough work.
Finishing my basement has consumed me.
Literally. My basement has come to life, and takes bites out of me when I go down there. It is very difficult to make anything done this way.
Seriously, I wanted to update you guys on the progress. To be honest, the pictures you see below are about a month old, but I wanted to show a progression. I will post a more updated blog later.
This post brings us up-to-date on framing, electric, and plumbing. When I took these pictures I was almost ready for drywall. The layout of the basement includes a 1) "rec-room" that is about 500 sq ft, 2) a small/medium sized bedroom ( about the size of bedrooms in our second floor) , 3) a very large walk-in closet attached to the bedroom, 4) a mechanical room, that houses our furnace, water heater, etc, that has some extra storage space as well, and 5) a bathroom.
I wanted a bedroom down there so we can market this house as a five bedroom house (which should give us an edge on other houses around here). This means it must have a large window and a closet. Which it does. This space could obviously be used for other things, such as an office (I wired it with cable, phone, and the network in my house), or an excersize room. I think the window will brighten things up in these types of rooms where you might not want to spend alot of time.
Here is the layout (you might have to click on it to expand). The top of the picture is the front of the house.
The two pictures below show the same POV as the original post here. As you can see, those aren't very good pictures, due to there being walls right in front of the camara, but I didn't think about that when I took them the first time. They are marked with red arrows in the layout above.
bedroom looking toward back-right side of house.
inside bathroom looking towards linen closet. the bedroom is on the other side ofthe closet/shower you see.
You can also check out these pictures:
entering the bedroom, looking towards the back of the house.
All of the exterior walls are full-framed-up walls, meaning they are similar to the exterior walls on the first-floor of a house. This wasn't the cheapest way to do it, but it was the best way. It also allowed me to insulate the basement, which also was not cheap. Another benefit was that I could hide various things, like the 3" pipe you see in the right corner. My goal was to make the basement look like the living space on the first and second floors, and I these kind of considerations helped.
looking into the bathroom from the foot of the stairs.
In the picture above, you can see all of the plumbing we had to do. The good people who built this house took the effort to bury a stub for a tub drain. All it took was breaking up the concrete to get to it. They also put in a 4" stub, that came out of the floor for the toilet. When my dad and I did the pluming, we were sure there was no such thing as a 4" toilet flange (the thing that the toilet attaches to) , so we dug everything up and replaced it with 3". The little rag on the floor is where the toilet will go. The vanity will be on your left. I also had to run fresh water to the bathroom, which was probably a 2 day job. Finishing basements is tough work.
btw, I just explained the concept of food turning into poop to Alex. I think I blew her mind. She g ave me a blank look, and said "okay". I reemphasized, and she called me discusting.
Labels: Finishing basement
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Finishing the Basement 1
Unsatisfied with the uninspired derelict that this blog has become?
Me too.
Here is a tip. Go to my wife's blog, which is continually updated and everything that this blog is not, as far as eye-tingling gingerbread and heart-warming pictures and slogans go. If you're lucky, you can look at the comments and catch some quality "girl talk", which is 100% identical to the inane banter I have to sit through when we go to bars with her girlfriends. (Picture me with my head on my hand and eyes slowly closing)
In all seriousness, in this comment thread on her blog, you will find the greatest comment of all time, left by my buddy Bleach.
Here are a few shots of my basement after 2 solid weekends of framing:
I have all of the exterior walls framed-up. The next job will be building interior walls, building a soffit around the beam and trunk lines you see coming from the furnace, and roughing in some additional plumbing, electric, and vents to the rooms I am making.
Due to the lighting, it doesn't look like much, but there is really only one pathway from the front door to the garage door in a entire two car garage. The rest is all of our Worldly possessions. When I was moving all this stuff I kept questioning how in the world we held on to so much useless trash. This motivated us to give away, throw away, or sell some of our junk. (The white shelf in the front was chock-full of decorative knick-knacks, trinkets, and other useless doo-dads) Another monument I had to get rid of was my mini climbing wall, while awesome, I simply did not have time for it anymore.
Me too.
Here is a tip. Go to my wife's blog, which is continually updated and everything that this blog is not, as far as eye-tingling gingerbread and heart-warming pictures and slogans go. If you're lucky, you can look at the comments and catch some quality "girl talk", which is 100% identical to the inane banter I have to sit through when we go to bars with her girlfriends. (Picture me with my head on my hand and eyes slowly closing)
In all seriousness, in this comment thread on her blog, you will find the greatest comment of all time, left by my buddy Bleach.
HEY! In true Mindsquirt fashion, let' s move on to a completely different topic.
As the above subject suggests, I am finishing my basement. I plan to keep a series going to keep folks updated, and also to force me to keep writing. However, given my track record lately, I am confident that this will be the last you hear of it.
Here are a few shots of my basement after 2 solid weekends of framing:
Shot from front-left corner of basement.
Shot from back left corner of basement. Not pictured: entrance to secret lair.
I have all of the exterior walls framed-up. The next job will be building interior walls, building a soffit around the beam and trunk lines you see coming from the furnace, and roughing in some additional plumbing, electric, and vents to the rooms I am making.
I had a friend from work help me for about 7 hours on a Friday night and Saturday morning. He wanted to quit after I kept remarking about how cool it would be if "we dug a pit where he could live". The rest of the framing I have done by myself, which is pretty slow-going. There isn't much to see now. I mostly wanted you to see the closest I could get to a "before" picture. If I was a more responsible blogger, I would have taken a picture in the very beginning, when my basement was awash in a sea of junk.
Moving that junk was a big deal! It took me all week after work and I even had to ask the guy from work to help me move the bigger stuff (kegarator, air hockey table) I moved it all from the basement to my garage. My once-pristine garage is now cluttered with all of our junk. Below is a picture of how much a family of three can accumulate when they have a basement.
Due to the lighting, it doesn't look like much, but there is really only one pathway from the front door to the garage door in a entire two car garage. The rest is all of our Worldly possessions. When I was moving all this stuff I kept questioning how in the world we held on to so much useless trash. This motivated us to give away, throw away, or sell some of our junk. (The white shelf in the front was chock-full of decorative knick-knacks, trinkets, and other useless doo-dads) Another monument I had to get rid of was my mini climbing wall, while awesome, I simply did not have time for it anymore.
I'll keep you guys posted. I will also make sure to keep a list of injuries, which to date has been minimal. I did have one incident today where I crushed my hand with a 28 oz. hammer.
There was a lot of screaming.
Labels: Finishing basement
