Summertime!

Summertime is a great time to spend in your basement. Really, though, when it's 30 degrees (86 for you Fahrenheit folks) a cold basement is a pretty sweet place to be. Even if you are covered in drywall dust.

School ended on June 27th, and after a lovely 4 day weekend with my family, I put on my gloves, broke out my exacto knife and drywalling square, and finished drywalling the basement in preparation for Matt from Southern Thunder Renos to come and mud, tape and seal. This is the one part of the reno that I am paying someone to do -- sanding mud and my patience level are not compatible. 

An exterior wall in what will be a bedroom. Closet to the left.

Wait, where did the window go?

That's better!

It wasn't all fun and games. This roof of the stairwell made me practice my geometry skills!

But, it is all done now. More posts to come soon!

Onward!

In lieu of text, here are some pics showing my progress drywalling:

All Inspected and Ready to Drywall

The inspector from the local power utility came to check out my rough-in on Wednesday. My understanding was that there was an initial inspection following rough-in, and then a final inspection after the basement was complete. It turns out that unless the inspector has some concerns, there is only one inspection.

After looking around briefly, and verifying I knew a few basic pieces of information (that I needed an arc fault breaker for the bedroom plugs, and I can have up to 12 devices on a breaker) the inspector made a break for the door. It may have helped that he came at the very end of the day so I could meet him after work, and that there was a pile of snow dumped that afternoon, which he referenced having to go home to shovel. Or maybe I'm just awesome at wiring rough-ins. Either way, mission accomplished!

Today I have Lowes drop 40 sheets of drywall on the driveway. With my commercial account with Lowes, I get delivery for $20. I couldn't drive my truck to the Lowes and back for $20 (even if it had plates on it, and wasn't under three feet of snow.) They were also supposed to drop off the tub/shower, which I got for $200 off, but it wasn't in stock. They will deliver it next week (for free.)

After work, four of us schlepped the drywall into the basement, through the window which is the width of drywall plus 1/4". It was a bit tricky maneuvering the 12' sheets into the opening, with our 6' high fence only being 6' away from the window. However, the majority of the sheets were only 8' long, and went in easily. However, doing this with less than 4 people is not recommended.

The drywall could have been purchased from a local company who delivers right into the basement. However, the cost for this is $4 more per sheet of drywall, plus $75. The price difference of $237 made any of the awkwardness of loading the drywall into the basement seem trivial.

I also picked up a vanity/top at Home Depot which is very similar to our cabinets/vanities upstairs. The quote from the cabinet company for the vanity/countertop was over $550. The Home Depot version, with a slightly different countertop, was $270 tax included. Due to the distance between the vanities, we figure no one will notice the difference. And $280 savings is $280 in savings.

Initially, I got a quote from Lowes for a the majority of the items the reno would require (tub, flooring, drywall, lumber, suspended ceiling, vanity, taps) as any Commercial order over $2500 is eligible for discounts of "up to 20%." When the quote came back, most things were between 5% and 10% off. I only selected the products with 10% or higher discounts for the order, and since then, I have been sale-shopping for the other items. I think the best way to save as much as you can is to have a sense of what you want, and then in the months leading up to a reno, and during the reno, check flyers. For example, the shower faucet I picked from Lowes for $89 went on sale at Co-op for $69. Though it is only $20, over the course of a reno, it will add up. This also helps you spread out the costs over a few months.

So, now I will drywall, and as I do, complete the wiring and plumb in the tub/shower combo. After that is done comes mudding, which is the only job on the reno I plan to hire out. I don't have the patience to mud. Stay tuned for more updates!

Electrical Rough-In

The electrical I have to add to the basement is minimal. I will add 6 pot lights to the rec room, a fixture to the bedroom (with a 3-way switch), move the hallway light, add four outlets to comply with electrical code, and put a light and GFCI plug in the bathroom. By piddling away at this while the kids play in the basement, and after they go to bed, I've been able to almost finish up this week. When I am done, the SaskPower inspector will come out to check my work complies with code. If he gives it the thumbs up, I can then drywall, put the switches and plugs on, and tie the new circuits into the electrical panel. (The plugs and switches can actually be done before inspection, but I'm only going to do the ones that are complex. It is easier to put the drywall up without working around the plugs.)

I am applying the wisdom of my electrician friend who wired our last basement -- wire is cheap. I have run all of the wires for the rough-in, and used around 100m of wire. Luckily I had some left over from my last basement, and was able to get away with buying only one 75m roll of 12-2 wire. I also ended up using almost 20m or 12-3 wire, between the bedroom switch, and the switch I added into the storage room that controls 2 light fixtures. So far, for switches and boxes, wire and fixtures, I've spent just over $300 on electrical. That will go up about $200 more, when I buy the pot lights from Richardson Lighting. I used Advanced Home Wiring (2nd Edition) (apparently there is now a 3rd edition) to figure out how to wire my circuits. It is a pretty good book, with a bunch of common circuit maps laid out clearly. I could have probably just used the internet, but I like paging through a book like this more. No need to sift out the crap information.

I moved an outlet that was pre-existing so that it wasn't in a closet. The loop of wire below the staple is so that if more wire ever needed to be pulled into the box after drywalling, it is available.

The is the most complex wiring I have to tackle -- 2 light switches, one that is a 3-way switch for the bedroom, and another that is a LED/CFL dimmer that operates the 6 pot lights. The wire from the bottom of the box runs to an electrical outlet below. Every wall over 24" needs an outlet to comply with code.

The dangling wire is the rough-in for the pot lights. The lights won't be added in until the suspended ceiling goes in, so I have left the existing single bulb for now. When I add the pot lights, I will remove the fixture, join the wires, and put a plate on the box. The pile of totes in the background speak to another issue...where will all of our crap go when drywalling?

The inspector from the city came on Wednesday to check the framing. He gave me the go ahead to drywall. So, the drywall and tub/shower combo are being delivered on March 8th. That gives me a week or so to finish the plumbing rough-in, which isn't a big job.

Wrapping up the Week...

I puttered around the basement the last few days of our holiday, and finished up framing the walls and bulkheads. I am putting two pocket doors that will open between the rec room and the bedroom. We did this in our last house's basement, and really liked the flexibility it created in the space. The kids toys can be pushed through the doors into the bedroom, and the doors closed, creating a child-free entertaining space. Or, more likely, we can open the doors and the kids can colonize both spaces. We are putting in doors with opaque glass to let some of the light transfer from room to room, as well.

Last time I put pocket doors in, I bought the pre-made wooden frame from Home Depot. It was about $100 and came with crooked wood that split at the thought of accepting a screw (hmmmm...that doesn't sound right.). I had to buy upgraded tracks for the doors to hang from because the ones it came with weren't suitable for the weight of doors with glass. This time, I took the advice of a friend, and bought the Johnson Pocket Door Frame from Home Hardware. It is the one that all contractors use. The two kits (joined in the middle to make the 5' opening) were around $300. We will see how they fare over time with the weight of the doors on them.

The box, with the contents, and the world's dullest hacksaw, below.

The kit is nothing more than a header, four metal studs with wood in them, and brackets to secure the studs to the floor. I had to use a hacksaw to cut the metal rail to length. After trying to cut the aluminum with the equivalent of a dull table knife, I went and bought a new blade for my hacksaw. I splurged and spent $3.98 for two. Worth every penny.

The view from the far corner through the rec room, and into the bedroom on the right with closet (notice
the 10' opening to accommodate the pocket doors) and the hallway towards the left (under the bulkhead.)

Building the bulkhead was time consuming and not particularly fun. It must require a spatial intelligence I lack, because I had to build it piece by piece, running up to the garage multiple times to make the cuts for the next small section. I used lots of screws and construction adhesive, but it still doesn't feel particularly strong because it isn't tied into the ceiling directly due to the location of the float on the walls. If it seems too weak once I drywall, I will build out around it with the suspended ceiling materials. In hindsight, this might have been wise to do anyway, given the time/effort the bulkhead took. Though, installing ceiling tiles vertically sounds about as much fun.

After finishing the framing, I started on some plumbing. The basement bathroom was "roughed in" by the builder, which is great, because it meant that I didn't have to get a permit for the plumbing. It is less great, too, because the builder installed the shower drain in an uncommon spot (though they have lots of very expensive showers that will fit the location exactly) and because they didn't bother bringing out a drain line for the sink. I solved the first problem by ignoring the recommendation of a 38" neo-angle shower and instead built an alcove for a enclosed shower. Taking into account the discount that comes from having a Lowe's Commercial Account (which I signed up for somewhat shadily), I got the shower for $850 -- a full $500 less than a shower/door to fit the spot provided by the plumbing company. I used Bluwood for the enclosure, and for the bottom plates of the walls. I didn't use it everywhere because it is $4.00 a stud compared to $2.50, and because the exterior walls were already framed with regular lumber. If I ever do get a lot of water, a gutting will be in order. By doing the bottom plates in the treated wood, if I get any seepage through the slab, it shouldn't cause the wood to rot.

It is hard to see, but the blue framing is for the tub. I am not going to secure it to the
concrete until I have the tub/shower ready to install, to be sure it is in the exact right spot. After
removing our entire bathroom floor in the last house, I have little desire to smash any concrete on this one.

This completed, I took on the other issue. I had located the 2" drain/vent pipe for the vanity in the exterior framing when tying in the interior walls, and so knew where it was. My plan was simple -- slit open the vapour barrier, cut out a chunk of the 2" pipe, add a 1.5" Sanitary T, a foot of pipe, a cap, some Tuck Tape, and done! I hauled out my dad's reciprocating saw for cutting the pipe (this is an amazing tool if you have any demolition to do, any tree branches to cut, any ABS pipe to cut -- you get the picture.) A few saw blades later (I kept hitting the concrete wall behind the pipe and bending/breaking the blade) I had made one cut. I cut out another piece a few inches up, and tried to dry-fit the T (without the glue on it.). Try as I might, it turned out there was very little give in the concrete pad below my cut and the extensive drain system above my cut. Who knew? I wasn't able to get the T in. I cut a bit more away from the original pipe, and weaseled my T in, but then the opening was too big for the T to seat properly on the top and bottom pipes. I have no idea how real plumbers deal with this problem -- oh wait, they just add the T when they do the plumbing the first time! Erg. Anyway, I remembered using a Fernco in my last basement reno when attaching the new ABS to the copper drain stack. Because the fitting is essentially a piece of rubber hose with 2 clamps, It can be slid up/down the existing pipe, making a closer connection possible. I ran to Rona and bought a 2" Fernco and assembled everything. Not sure if this is actually allowed under plumbing code, but it worked and I couldn't think of another way to do it. I put the pipe back together with the T, and voila - I'm ready for the trap and drain down the road! I don't have any supply lines run yet -- that will come some other day.

The finished product!

I spent a  bit of time Friday doing some wiring. I had three changes to make to the existing wiring which I did today. I haven't run any of the new circuits yet. I had to move an existing plug, because with my framing it was located in the closet. I put in a junction box and ran the plug, as well as a light in the storage under the stairs. I also moved the light fixture at the bottom of the stairs 18" further into the basement so that it illuminates the small hallway as well. When at Home Depot buying some 14-3 wire for a 3-way switch to come in the bedroom, I picked up a light fixture that matches our upstairs fixtures, and installed it at the bottom of the stairs. This was a bit finicky because the light was located in the heating return. However, it was nothing a bit of foil tape didn't fix up after! Finally, our storage room was originally lit by two single-bulb fixtures with pull strings. After a bit of brain bending, I followed the plans in my wiring book and wired both lights to a switch. This required a bit of 3-wire and took longer than it should have -- as most things to when renovating!

The view from the landing into the bathroom with
the new light fixture installed. The storage room is on the right.

Re-wiring the pull switch light. Working with your hands above your head for any length of
time is no fun! Especially when cramming your hands between two heat runs.

Now that the weekend is here, the work (and blog posts) will slow down.

Who shot a .22 in the basement?

One of the perks of framing a basement is getting to ignite a .22 shell in your basement with a hammer.

I bought a Ramset for my previous basement renovation. It was about $30 at Home Depot. It uses a .22 shot to blast nails through your bottom plate into the concrete. Some people use tapcons, but I've found them to be tedious, and this to be more fun. Seriously, it's a .22 shot. They make more automatic nailers than this one, which is very similar to using a muzzle-loader, but for the 30 or so nails I'll put in, this works just fine. A word to the wise -- oil your Ramset daily! They sell a specific oil for them, which I purchased and subsequently leaked all over my toolbox, so I now use air tool oil, and it seems to do the trick.

Where I live, it is building code for home builders to frame and insulate the exterior walls of the basement when they build a house. This saves a lot of work and money when it comes to finishing the basement (I spent only $250 on the framing lumber) but it makes for new challenges when it comes to adding walls where one wasn't planned. If you were framing the whole basement, you would build your exterior walls with the interior walls in mind. However, if you were framing the basement with finishing as quickly and cheaply as possible in mind, you'd put your studs 24" on centre, and put no backing for walls or drywall anywhere.

Today, I built the last wall for the bathroom, and had to tie it into the outside wall framing. When I cut the vapour barrier to slip a 2X4 in to provide backing for the drywall on the corner, I discovered some real fun:

I opened the wall to discover a pressure treated 4X4 (holding up the main beam, I think), a couple plumbing stacks, and, just for fun, some electrical!

I worked around what was there to secure the interior wall to the exterior as best I could. When I was done, I had added backing for the drywall like below:

Now when the drywall is installed into the corner, it will be supported by the backing. 

Next, I had to re-seal the vapour barrier. It is regularly -40 here (where Celsius and Fahrenheit meet!) in the winter, so maintaining the integrity of the seal is important. I used a combination of acoustical sealant and Tuck Tape to seal the vapour barrier to the wood I added. The acoustical sealant was leftover from a 2007 job in our previous house -- the original Handyman's Dream -- and it was still soft. That stuff really never does dry out!

Acoustical sealant on the seam where I cut open the vapour barrier. Essentially, I've included the 2X4 in the vapour barrier by sealing both sides of the cut to the wood.

Here's what the Tuck Tape looks like:

Tuck Tape. Someone smarter than me would be able to tell which provides a better seal.

At the end of the day, I finished two more walls in addition to the bathroom wall. I still have to finish the wall in front of the storage under the stairs, frame in the bathtub, and make sure I have drywall backing everywhere.

Looking through the pocket door opening into the bedroom. The closet doors are framed on the left.

The last wall on the bathroom, complete with bulkhead. Notice the tuck tape to re-seal the vapour barrier.

Framing the Argument

Okay, not so much the argument as the basement. I've been mucking around in my spare time framing a wall here and there with the kids. I do all the cutting in the garage. I can't bring myself to move the saw into the basement because of the sawdust generated -- I figure with such a small basement to frame, the time spent walking with wood is negligible. I measure out a wall, draw it out indicating the heights of each stud and top/bottom plates, and then go to the garage. After cutting all the wood, I carry it downstairs, assemble the wall using my framing nailer and air compressor, and stand it up into place. This isn't really more time than it would take if I had carried the wood downstairs at the beginning.

Looking straight into the storage room.

To begin, I extended the wall from the bathroom out to the stairs. This frames out the storage room. 

The bathroom (on the left) and the storage room (straight ahead). 

The view from the stairs straight down into the bathroom.

This week I have time off work for February Break, so I am going to try to finish framing the walls and bulkheads. I am also going to try to put together an order for the majority of the supplies for the rest of the project. I have a commercial account at Lowe's, and orders over $2500 are discounted up to 20%. So far, we have picked out our bathtub/shower, flooring (LVT - more on that later),  and suspended ceiling. That should hit the $2500 threshold easily.

Yesterday, I took the kids downstairs and we hung a few electrical boxes. Norah, now 5, marked the 46" height for the light switches (she knows to mark the X above the line) and the 12" height for the plugs. Nolan (who will be 3 in a few months) picked out the screws I needed, hit studs and the plumbing rough-in with a hammer, and shone the flashlight. Wherever he wanted. He did, however, today proudly tell our friends who came over, that "We build a wall!" and took them downstairs to show off. His tour was cut short when he was distracted by a soccer ball. I am excited to see what they think of the progress this week!

A Wall...So it begins.

Today, while my wife and daughter were out at a movie, Nolan and I undertook building the first wall in the basement. Previously. I built a bulkhead around the heating duct, and all that was needed was the wall below. I secured the bottom board on the bulkhead by using an old tie (pictured below.) This would be a simple job with a partner, but I didn't have one at the time. I have found that working alone, I come up with some pretty good workarounds.

The tie held the bottom board high enough that I could screw one end of the board, and then move to the other end to do the other. I am not sure how I would have held the board in the right position without something holding it up.

However, after building the bulkhead, I had some concerns about floating the walls. Initially, I had planned to float the walls on the bottom, as is common in Saskatchewan. (For those of you whose homes aren't built on soil that constantly shifts, floating a basement wall means that you don't tie it into both the concrete floor and the bottom of the floor joists above. This allows for the floor to shift and move a bit, without it pushing up on the main floor of the house.)

One of the features of the basement is a double pocket door from the rec room into the den/spare bedroom/play room/whatever it ends up being used for. This is something we did in our last basement, and it will allow light to come into the rec room through the other room. It will also allow the kids a place to play while we recreate in the rec room. My concern with leaving a gap at the bottom of the walls and installing 5' wide pocket doors is that the whole wall (which is only 14' long) will have a 10' wide unsecured opening. Because the pocket doors need to slide into the wall, and there needs to be a gap under the wall/doors to create the float, there is no good way to affix the wall to the floor.

After some reading and consultation (Shannon @ house-improvements.com, of course) I decided to float the walls at the top. Basically, the walls are 2" short of the bottom of the floor joists (or ceiling.) Note that this only works if a suspended ceiling is being used. If you are drywalling your ceiling, you have to float the walls at the bottom.

Nolan using a crescent wrench to help me straighten a stud.

After building the wall, I had to put some backing for the drywall into the existing exterior wall. I slit the vapour barrier, attached an additional stud, and taped it back up.

Nolan loved the taping part. While doing this, I also found the drain pipe for the vanity that the builder said was "somewhere there in the wall."

After building the wall, I attached it to the bulkhead and then lowered the bulkhead from the ceiling, and voila! Because I changed my mind about the float, I will have to find a way to drill holes in the top plate to put spikes through to the floor joists. A problem for another day!

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...

A New Challenge

Well, the handyman's dream proved to be too big a job to complete and continue updating my blog at the same time. I ran out of blog steam, but in the end I finished the basement, stripped the stucco, put on 2" foam, and new windows and siding. Here's a video of the siding/window transformation. Then we sold the house.

We had a 1420 sq foot two story house built, and moved into it with our two kids in January 2012.

The foundation was poured in late summer.

Soon it was framed.

The roof was on.

Windows were in.

Finishing began inside.

And we moved in January 21, 2012.

Since then, I have landscaped the back and front yards, built a two-level deck, a shed, a pirate ship, and tiled some backsplash.

The two-level deck in progress.

The finished product.

The back yard with grass and garden beds (pre-fence).

The snow blew in during the winter, before the fence was completed.

Stepping stones from the back yard to the front.

The side-shed mid-way through. It is 16' long and 5' wide to make use of the space beside the house.

Finished, with doors on both ends for access from the front yard and back yard.

Reclaimed shiplap from an old barn, to be used to create a pirate ship for my kids.

The pirate ship part way through. The siding now goes all the way to the top.

I was too cheap to pay the builder to do the backsplash tile, so I learned how to do it. The tile came from Costco and was less than half of what it would have cost from a tile shop, or Home Depot.

The original shared Chev Half-ton I used in my previous renos was taken off the roads for being unsafe. I eventually inherited my Dad's 1996 Mazda B3000 in 2011. He was killed in a farming accident in 2009. I have used his old farm truck to haul dirt, rock, and, as seen above, ridiculous lengths of lumber. The truck has a 6' box, for those of you doing some math at home. It isn't pretty, but it does the job.

As you have probably guessed, I am going to start a new adventure -- finishing the basement. I will aim to regularly chronicle that adventure on this blog. Stay tuned!