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.