# Blank Canvas in the Basement



## biggidybankston (Dec 8, 2009)

Here's a drawing of the overall plan for the basement:










And here's a closer view just showing the finished space:










Its unlikely that any one cares this much, but here's a PDF with dimensions, and better resolution:
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=...zEtYTk5ZC00MGZhLTk4YWQtMTNhMTcxOWY3MzNj&hl=en

-J


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## Itsdanf (Jan 29, 2009)

Good luck -- looks like this will be interesting tracking your progress on this project. :thumbsup:

What software did you use to draft the floor plans...?


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## biggidybankston (Dec 8, 2009)

Itsdanf said:


> Good luck -- looks like this will be interesting tracking your progress on this project. :thumbsup:
> 
> What software did you use to draft the floor plans...?


Plans were drawn in AutoCAD 2000 (I know, I'm about a million versions behind!). Something I had to have in school (engineering major), and its use continues to stick with me. Its not really something for someone just getting into drawing, there are actually much easier programs out there. But I have it, and I'm pretty proficient at it, so it works.

-J


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## biggidybankston (Dec 8, 2009)

*Day one of construction*

So I wake up this morning and say "crap, I can't get up!" Working at at desk all day doesn't help you on days that require physical labor. I guess I'm fortunate that the lumber delivery guy was an hour or so half late. If I'd added that time to the day, I would be in really rough shape!

The highlight of the day was when, as I filled out the check for the lumber, the delivery guy walks over to me, looks at my permit board that says "BASEMENT FINISH" in huge letters and asks, "so...are you finishin' a basement or something?" I couldn't resist the opportunity, so I fired back "Nope. Puttin' in a swimming pool!"

I did notice on the invoice a box marked "shipping weight" that showed 1892. I'm guessing that's pretty accurate. Never underestimate on these projects the amount of time spent moving materials around. I was actually fortunate, however to have a father-in-law who sells for a large commercial building materials company, who hooked me up on lumber. Not only did he save me money, but also got it delivered. When the delivery guy drove the pile up the driveway on the little 3-wheeled forklift thingy, I imagined myself still at the home depot counting 2x4's out of a bin, looking around for an apron'd lacky to ask "do you have any more of these overhead?" Took me about an hour and a half to tote everything inside, then I quit for lunch.










I decided to frame the wall in the bathroom first, since I thought it would probably be the toughest. It was. I had the brilliant idea to build it on the floor and then move it inside and set it in place. I thought I was really smart for remembering to break it into sections so that it would fit through the door. What I didn't think about was how to turn in from its side to its bottom and get it in place. I ended up have to tear it apart in the room, and start over. Driving the nails into the top-plate between the main drain, floor above, and duct work turned into a real aggravation. Anyway, here it is done:










After that, I was off to the races. I got about 1/2 way around the bonus room:










Oh look, the pile got smaller!










The hero of the day was my new Ramset nailer. These things are amazing! I had only read of, and been told of them. Never had actually seen one used, but I'm impressed. I couldn't figure out how to get it to fire at first, but after a quick call to tech-support, away I went. If you never seen one of these before, it basically uses a .22 caliber blank to fire a nail straight into concrete. I bought the cheap one (about $22 at HD) but they have fancier ones that are a little more automatic. Mine you have to load the nail, and the charge (called the "load") each time. No more than I'll use it, this is fine for me.










Just so everyone will know how much of a nerd I am, when I flipped over one of the toe-plates I noticed that a 7400 series logic IC must have been missed by the last sweeping of the floor got embedded in the plate. I think I'll just leave it there, so a future homeowner can deduce that the work was done by such a nerd!










My sister-in-law is getting married this weekend, so I'm not to sure how much work I'll get done Sunday. Not sure if I'll have fully recovered by then anyway. We'll see...

-J


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## gth629j (May 4, 2010)

7400 series logic hmm. So what are we looking at here, your standard NAND, NOR, or inverter?


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## MagicalHome (Apr 12, 2010)

Wow, it's a huge project @[email protected] You do it by yourself only?????


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## biggidybankston (Dec 8, 2009)

To put GHT at ease, turns out it was a 7446 - Binary to 7 segment display driver...

Geez! I've been bad about updating status. Actually, I've been bad about getting any work done. There always seems to something else needing my attention.

I have gotten a little done steadily over the last few months. Got the ceiling framed in the bathroom. Also finished framing the perimeter of the bonus room, the built-in shelf thingy, and soffits that make the tray ceiling at one end of the bonus room. Wednesday, I managed a couple of hours to go buy more lumber, and put up about half of the ceiling for the other end of the bonus room. I was unsure about how far I could span the ceiling with 2x4's without having to worry about the sheetrock sagging later, so I'm supporting it midway. This also makes it easy for me to break the framing up into sections I can lift into place by myself.

Anyway, here are the pics:


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## biggidybankston (Dec 8, 2009)

Finished framing in the ceiling for the bonus room yesterday


















No, that's not a skylight in front of the closet. Its just the light mounted to the floor joists above washing out my framing work.

There are going to be a bunch of little tedious frame-around projects to do soon. I'll need frame around the concrete knee wall beside the staircase (should be easy) a ceiling for the bonus room closet (not too bad), the laundry room closet (medium) and the laundry room itself (probably going to be a P.I.T.A.) then lastly fire-blocking (definatly a huge P.I.T.A) I tackled one small frame around yesterday to finish up the bonus room ceiling. 










If you can make any sense of the picture, in the wall above and to the left of the bathroom door, several things slip through a small space: A large flexible return air duct, the main drain line for the upstairs bathroom, hot and cold water lines, and the A/C compressor lines. Obviously the return air duct made up the biggest volume. I had already forced it into a downward bend when I built the ceiling in the bathroom. It bends down to come under the top plate of the wall. I was afraid that if I forced it right back up again, I would be restricting the flow of air too much. To further complicate all of this, a ceiling joist needed to pass through here right where the A/C line came under the main drain line. I accommodated all of this with a little triangular shaped drop down in the corner, or at least I think I did. I'm still not sure I'm happy with this, but I'm reasoning that since this is kind of hidden in a corner behind the closet, it's not visually a big part of the overall room. We'll see what it looks like when the drywall goes up.


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## gma2rjc (Nov 21, 2008)

You're making good progress! I have to finish one half of my basement some day, so it's interesting to see how you are doing things.

Did you seal the rim joists?


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## biggidybankston (Dec 8, 2009)

Rim joists were sealed by the builder, so already done. I'll also be adding some additional insulation before the whole business is done. Probably overkill though, basements usually stay pretty comfortable year-round in this part of Georgia.

On the subject of insulation, there was an oddity in the basement when I bought the house. Looks like they put some leftover insulation into some of the interior walls, but put none on some of the exterior walls. Weird...










I especially liked this one: insulation in one wall bay, but nowhere else...


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## Polywanna (Oct 22, 2010)

I'm part way through finishing my own basement and I am interested to see how yours turns out. I hope you don't mind me stealing your ideas.


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## biggidybankston (Dec 8, 2009)

Go ahead, steal away. I've gleaned a great deal of wisdom from this forum to get me this far, so I'm glad I can give some back.


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## cocobolo (Dec 16, 2008)

Love that name you picked out. It sounds like it might be a cartoon character or something.

How many square feet is this that you will be finishing in your basement? It looks to be about the same as your garage occupies...around 450 or so?


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## biggidybankston (Dec 8, 2009)

Thanks! The name is a play on my last name that a friend in high school came up with. It's been with me ever since.

The total area of the remodel is around 650 sq ft.


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## cocobolo (Dec 16, 2008)

biggidybankston said:


> Thanks! The name is a play on my last name that a friend in high school came up with. It's been with me ever since.
> 
> The total area of the remodel is around 650 sq ft.


Is that just for the basement? Or is there some other part you are doing as well?
Or is it that your garage is bigger than most? Any way you cut it that's a lot of extra very useful space.


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## biggidybankston (Dec 8, 2009)

Yep, the basement area is about 650 sq feet. And yes, the garage is a large 2 car. The garage part on the drawing is also probably not exactly scaled. I don't think I measured it when I did the drawing. The house upstairs (single story) us around 1400 square feet, so I'm adding about 50% more space.


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## cocobolo (Dec 16, 2008)

biggidybankston said:


> Yep, the basement area is about 650 sq feet. And yes, the garage is a large 2 car. The garage part on the drawing is also probably not exactly scaled. I don't think I measured it when I did the drawing. The house upstairs (single story) us around 1400 square feet, so I'm adding about 50% more space.


....more places to store stuff...:thumbsup:


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## biggidybankston (Dec 8, 2009)

acutally, just finished space to store the stuff that temporarily stowed away! I need to get a few pics of the spare bedroom that has everything that was in this space before I started. You can barely open the door!


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## cocobolo (Dec 16, 2008)

biggidybankston said:


> acutally, just finished space to store the stuff that temporarily stowed away! I need to get a few pics of the spare bedroom that has everything that was in this space before I started. You can barely open the door!


That sounds waaaaaaay too familiar! :whistling2:


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## DangerMouse (Jul 17, 2008)

biggidybankston said:


> Just so everyone will know how much of a nerd I am, when I flipped over one of the toe-plates I noticed that a 7400 series logic IC must have been missed by the last sweeping of the floor got embedded in the plate. I think I'll just leave it there, so a future homeowner can deduce that the work was done by such a nerd!


Or call it a robotic spider that won't make webs and freak out Red Squirrels... Po)

DM


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## cocobolo (Dec 16, 2008)

DangerMouse said:


> Or call it a robotic spider that won't make webs and freak out Red Squirrels... Po)
> 
> DM


:laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::thumbup:


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## BigJim (Sep 2, 2008)

That is a heck of a project, looking good.


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## gma2rjc (Nov 21, 2008)

Have you had time to work on your basement lately biggidybankston?


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## cocobolo (Dec 16, 2008)

Hey, you can't sneak anything by us you know. We keep an eye out for when you're online!

What we really want to see is more pics.


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## biggidybankston (Dec 8, 2009)

Ok, I admit it...I've me remiss of my DIY duties for quite some time. I promise, I wasn't avoiding anyone...its just that stuff happens. Sometime awhile ago our church launched a second campus and we became very involved with extra volunteer hours, work got busier. Life happened.

Anyway, after reading of everyone else's progress...the DIY bug returned and I was determined to get back to work on this project. That's been held up slightly by the wife-unit's desire for hardwood floors upstairs. So two weeks ago I hauled about 1,200 lbs of pre-finished bamboo up the stairs and through the front door.










While hauling in said materials, I couldn't help but think of cocobolo toting all of those Satillo tiles up the hill from a boat that he had just sailed from god-knows-where. It made the misery more bearable; felt like I had to suck it up. After hauling in said materials I began to wonder if stacking 1,200 lbs of flooring in the middle of the floor on an other wise "economy" house was a good idea. It seems two weeks later that all was ok.

Although I failed to take pictures during the process we decided we were going to repaint the entire living/dining/hallway combo with our floor install to a nice shade of battleship gray that the wife picked out. (Actually, I did remember to take pictures, but the digital camera has now bit the dust. I'll be relegated to cell phone pictures until Santa brings me a new one) While getting ready to paint, I decided it was high time we had some decent casings on our windows and the two doorways into the kitchen. Being the "economy class" house, the casings were really just Sheetrock with a sill at the bottom and a tiny little apron underneath. I bought casing to match the rest of the doors in the house and did the two windows in the living room, the two doorways (no doors, just an opening) to the kitchen and also the window that looks out of the kitchen onto the living room. The two windows required a bigger sill to accommodate the additional casing, and I beefed up the apron with crown molding. I don't know why I didn't do this a long time ago. The whole project didn't cost more than $50, and only took a few hours. (plus considerable cussing over the crown-molding).










Although I don't have any pictures of the molding going in...there's my beautiful bride putting some paint on the moldings while my dad and I were busy pulling about a google's worth of of staples out of the sub-floor which had been holding some rather nasty carpet padding.

Now on to the good stuff:
The floor we're putting down is a solid 5/8" bamboo floor. We were going with something different, but there was a special on this product at the last minute and it was substantially better than what we set out to buy.










I've noticed that all of the bamboo products are always branded as "eco-somethingorother". I question the validity of the green-value of bamboo products mostly since they're all made in China...a land of questionable environmental practices. But it was very affordable, and appears to be a very durable product. We shall see...meet my product testers:










Now I know they look cute...but lemmy tell you, when it comes to floors, they mean business!

On to the install: Yesterday my dad came over to help. I thought it would be pretty easy to get the carpet out and get to work. But pulling up all of the tack strips, and staples holding down the carpet pad proved to be truly time consuming. I don't think we nailed our first piece of bamboo until after 1:00. Anyway, here's some of the action once the rosin paper was down and we snapped our chalk line to set the first row.



















The first row is nailed on the face, to be covered by molding when finished, and also by hand in the tongue of the first row. We pre-drilled holes for all of the nails to prevent splitting. The second row was also nailed by hand since the nail gun would not fit against the wall.


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## biggidybankston (Dec 8, 2009)

Once we got past the the two vents we started making serious headway, until we met the end of the nook to one side of the fireplace. I'm pretty proud of my handy-work mitering the boards to fit around the hearth, but sadly didn't think to take a picture until it had gotten dark. By then the cell phone camera wasn't up to the task



















By 8, my dad had to leave and we were completely exhausted. Too bad I told the Mrs. this would be done in one day. I'd say we made it half way.










I should mention that no member of this crew had ever installed a hardware floor before. We were mostly making it up as we went. Hopefully I'll get some more floor down tomorrow (assuming my back resumes its normal operation) and will have some updated pics.


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## mikegp (Jul 17, 2011)

Question on the basement. Your studs are touching the concrete walls? Are they all pressure treated?


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## Ironlight (Apr 13, 2011)

That looks great! The color of the wood goes well with the room and proportion of the boards fits nicely. Good for you for using bamboo as well. I thought about using it in our house but figured I should stick with what was originally there.


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## biggidybankston (Dec 8, 2009)

Yesterday was our 4th anniversary. So being the romantic types, we installed the last of the bamboo together. Lobster dinners and flowers are overrated!

I managed to get all of the hallway minus the closet done the day before. So I finished that little bit up while the wife cooked breakfast. Bacon and eggs is always a great way to start a day's work. We found one box of material that we purchased which was an entirely different color from the rest of the floor. Since I had already opened the box and cut a few pieces of it before we figured it out, I doubted we would be able to return it. So I used some of it in the closet. Amazing how much darker it is, huh?










Here's what I got down the day before:


















To finish out the top of the stairs, I fit the last piece all the way across and under the door casing. I cut it to the right width the leave an inch of reveal like the rest of the stair treads. After that I setup my router table with a 1/4" roundover bit and put some relief on the top and bottom of the new tread. I had to resort to a few face nails that I'll need to cover with some matching wood putty in order to get it nailed down tight enough that I thought it would stay put.

The little nook at the end of the hall was a bit of a challenge as well. I've never done any of this before, so I'm not entirely sure that I did it right. Since these boards would have to line up with the runs I had already done in the living room, what I did was to project a line for where my next row of boards would be all the way down the hall. I then measured back from that line and divided by 3-3/4 (the face width of my boards). I established where the forward edge of the first board would be, and nailed it down to the line. Its important to make measurements with the face width of the board and ignore the roughly 3/16" tongue on the board. Fortunately, after putting down about 5 rows of boards, everything lined back up with the floor I had already laid.

After breakfast, the wife got started painting the new base molding so it could dry while I got busy laying more floor. By around noon I had gotten everything done but the dining room.










Then I remembered that the flooring nailer had to be back to home depot by 3:00 to avoid paying for another day. So we got at it to finish the dining room and leave time to get to HD on time. At 2:30 I was to the last row the nailer could reach, so we took off to return the tool and have our "anniversary dinner" at our favorite little Mexican restaurant on the way back.










When we got home, I nailed the last few rows by hand, pre-drilling all of the holes to prevent splitting. This bamboo is hard stuff, and its fairly easy to split the little tongue right off. Around 5:00 I was to the last board:










Whew! After 3 days of nailing the boards down, I was glad to see it finished. No rest for the weary, though. I had a buddy on the way over to help move the furniture back in, and really wanted to get the base molding down before then. I got most of it before he arrived (at least the longest pieces) After he left, I got the rest done and most of the quarter-round at the bottom. There's still a few odds and ends to attend to. Caulking molding, touch up, and relocating a phone line that was previously stuffed under the base molding when the carpet was in. But at least the floor is in at this point.


























-J


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## gajags (May 4, 2010)

*Flooring*

You did a beautiful job! Are you ready to switch jobs to flooring? I hope not. I will probably need a new car before new floors!


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## paulnixon (Nov 24, 2011)

First of all you have to know that the best part about the home is unfinished it is called blank basement.The apartment in the Law - For many of us would be a big push out the laws in a hotel when visiting, but with the guests in the home space also makes it ideal for extended stays or permanent, home for elderly parents need someone to care for them. Naturally, separated from the rest of the house, an apartment in the basement can give a continuous sense of independence.


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