whats next?

so whats next...

• baseboards and furniture
• A/V stand
• Bar
• phase 2 stuff: storage room and bathroom
  

so i'd say we pretty much done the project for this year.

next i'm going to take some glamour shots of this thing and show you how it really turned out...

stay tuned

ps. I'm hosting a small New Years eve party to break this project in... hopefully the place doesnt get trashed...

Installation of Wall Lights

Floor Installation Continues

Flooring has been a rewarding phase of the project. You get to cover large areas fairly quickly, without breaking your back (unlike drywalling the ceiling).

Pics from when we installed the sub floor in the large main area:



Piece by piece we covered the floor with rigid insulation, eventually the entire floor was prepped, insulated and taped together.


In this step we've started to lay down the particle board. Each board requires a minimum of 6 concrete screws, we ended up putting between 6-10 on each board, depending on how warped the wood was or how it sat on the floor. Time wise it takes a lot of effort to predrill through concrete then insert a screw, especially if you have to keep checking the floor for unevenessAll the white spots are holes we drilled for the concrete screws, this was round 1 of many.


With the sub floor complete, we began installing laminate flooring. After installing 36 boxes of the stuff, my knees were shot and the knee pads needed replacing badly. Laminate took about 2 weekends to complete, mainly because there were a few curves, poles and angled walls to consider.






Something you'll only know by reading this blog: We purchased laminate months ago (mainly because it was on sale)...and since we had to buy a large quantity we needed to get to the store before they ran out of stock...so instead of measuring the basement the accurate but time consuming way, I did a quick back of the envelope calculation. I took the total house square footage and divided by 3 to get the basement area, subtracted the area in the home theatre room (because i wanted to do a different colour) and roughly subtracted the area of the storage room and bathroom. I rounded it up a box or two. This calc was all done long before we drywalled completely finished framing the basement. Anyways, long story short... i later recalculated the exact area we needed to cover with this laminate... taking into account the 7% extra you purchase for cuts etc... i was 3 or 4 boxes short. My solution: instead of carrying 36 bloody boxes of laminate up the stairs through the garage and into my car and making 3 trips to return it to the store, i said screw it, we'll do the floor anyway, and if we're short we're short.

Luck will have it, that by being supremely stingy with the flooring, and painstakenly smart about how to use the boards, and measuring 4 times instead of twice... I managed to finish the floor completely. Of course its not perfect, but I can carry the leftover offcuts in one hand, thats how little wastage there was after almost 1000sqft of flooring. Not bad I must say, not bad.

The point is not to brag, but to point out that you will be faced with challenges, and all the potential solutions may not seem ideal, but if you take the time to weigh your options and have a little faith, you'll do fine. (or you could just take the time to measure the floor properly before you go buy flooring...just a thought)

Installation of sub floor and laminate flooring

Installation of wall lights and pot lights in the HT room

Painting and Cleaning begins

Next for the fun part... well not the cleaning.

We primed and painted the ceiling while cleaning all the crap off the floors (drywall dust, dried plaster, dirt, etc)

Contractor in for Taping, Plastering and Bar drain

Here are a few pics of the contractors we called in to do the taping, plastering, corner beading sanding and installation of a drain.

We have power

Hooked up power to all electrical outlets and lights...woo hoo

Next Steps

Whats left to do:

• Plastering and Taping (contractor)
  
• Priming and painting
• Installing electrical outlets, speaker terminals, switches, pot lights
• Install circuit breakers (electrician)
  
• Install drain for wet bar (plumber)
  
• Install sub floor
• Install laminate
• Baseboards, corner molding and doors
• Install Projector and AV equipment
  
• Furniture
• Party to celebrate the completion of longest project I've ever volunteered to help with
  

Prepping Ceiling for Taping in Plastering

So now that the drywalling is complete, we'd like to call in a contractor to do the taping and plastering.

We've decided to go with a smooth ceiling finish. Our landing area is currently flowing right into the main area of the basement (since we knocked down the wall a few months ago) and is presently covered in stucco.

So we've removed the stucco so that the plasterer will finish both ceilings equally and we have the same finish throughout.

Pics to show you what I'm on about:

Hiding Pipe and Metal Pole

Problem: We had a pole and a pipe staggered going into one of our duct boxes.

Alternatives:

1. Box up the pole and pipe separately
2. Box both up into a large box
3. Relocate them (yeh right!)
4. Make them into a display shelf

Chosen Solution: Make them into a shelf. Drywall around the box and make supports for glass shelving.