Permits and Planning

Well, I have begun to plan for the finishing of the basement. I like to think on a job for a while before tackling anything, and this works out well for me because I have no time to actually do anything but think about the job ahead of me. The house we built had a basic floor plan layout included, and we haven't deviated much from it. The basement is only 730 square feet, and so there isn't a ton of real estate to work with. We decided on a storage room, rec room, bedroom/den (with double pocket doors opening into the rec room) and a bathroom. Nothing fancy.

I applied for and received a building permit from the City. Because my exterior basement walls were finished by the builder, and my plumbing was roughed in for the bathroom, this wasn't very challenging. I needed to give the City a scale drawing of my floor plan and information on the framing of the walls, type of ceiling, etc. I played around with a few computer programs to draft the plan, and after finding them annoying (due to my lack of skill, I assure you -- I am sure they are fine programs for those who use them regularly) I sketched out a scale drawing. I didn't even use graph paper because I didn't have any.

And, $100 and two trips to City Hall later, voila!

If you're looking at this drawing, and thinking, geeze, the walls don't even look to be at 90 degrees to each other, I assure you, in real life, they are. In this drawing, probably not.

An electrical permit is required, as well. This involved me filling out a document, calling the power utility for clarification, and mailing them a cheque for $85. No sketches required.

While waiting for the permit, I began to break my plan down into components. To date, I have 9 crudely drawn sketches that are the initial framing, drywall, bulkhead and electrical plans. Like I said, they are crude:

The goal of these plans is not to create a roadmap, but to get my head into the space where I can think about  the job ahead, and anticipate challenges/think through trouble spots beforehand. With two pre-school aged kids, I have a bit of time after they go to bed every night where building a stud wall isn't possible, but planning one out, is.

Here I should give a shout-out to my lifeline on this reno - Shannon from http://www.house-improvements.com/. He is a wealth of knowledge, and replies personally to questions, usually within a day. So far, I have picked his brain about floating the walls from the top or bottom, drywall ceilings vs. suspended, 16" vs 24" centres, and tile shower vs acrylic shower.

So, for now, I wait for some time off of work to begin the job. Until then, the pile of scrap paper covered in pencil scrawl grows...