Category: Home Improvement

Things are moving along quickly.

The basement "infrastructure" is all in place. The walls are all in their proper places. All of the plumbing is done, including all of the water pipe for a radiant heating system. The electrical work is finished. Conduit and speaker wire has been run for my home theater system. I even built a mount for my projector between two floor joists... twice. (The first one was one joist left of center. OOPS!) Insulation has been placed in the walls and in the ceiling. The basement even passed inspection.

Throughout the whole process of getting the underlying structure in place, I was probably a pretty big pain in the butt for the contractor we hired. I meddled. I complained. I made sure that everything we had discussed was done and was done according to plan. I even replaced two light junction boxes with ones that are rated for ceiling fans because, honestly, it's a LOT easier to do BEFORE the drywall goes up. I figured that if everything wasn't done correctly before the drywall started going up, it wouldn't be corrected at that point. EVER.

Yesterday the drywall people showed up and did a surprising amount of work. The entire ceiling is done and about a third of the walls are done. They're scheduled for seven days of work. I believe that today, they'll finish putting up the sheet rock. Then comes the not-so-fun process of mudding, taping, and sanding. Doors and trim are scheduled for delivery a week from Friday.

The drywall makes everything look smaller. I can no longer see from room to room. Everything feels closer, nearer. I was expecting that to happen.

I'm breathing a bit of a sigh of relief, for now. How bad can you mess up drywall? Well... They've covered up a junction box for a wall sconce light. They pulled two of the four speaker wires through my home theater wall and left the other two buried. No, not really a big deal, because they cut holes for the speakers anyway... But all of this stuff is fixable, at least until they paint. I'm sure I'll be down checking and re-checking, and meddling until it's the way I want it.

We're getting more and more excited. After the drywall people are done and the doors and trim are installed, it'll be time to texture and paint. But starting yesterday, the finished product is becoming more and more visible.

The plumber is done and has left the building.

The electricians started working on Friday afternoon. They've done a lot of the rough electrical work, including things like putting in electrical junction boxes in their proper locations and pulling lots and lots of wire through holes they drilled in the framing. They also put in some can lights in the family room area.

The interesting thing to me is this: When they build a house, the framers come through and put up all this wood. It's beautiful, new, relatively unblemished wood. Then the plumbers come through. They have to drill holes in the wood to put pipes through. Then the electricians come through. They have to drill holes in the wood to run electrical wiring through. So right after the construction, the demolition begins!

It's all well and good. Eventually the wood will all be covered up with sheet rock anyway. Then layer upon layer of purely cosmetic stuff goes up... tape, mud, texture, paint... So the "holey" wood will all disappear into distant memory anyway.

I AM going to vacuum all of the wood shavings from behind and inside the framing before the sheet rock guys get here. I know it would never be a problem, but knowing that it's there MIGHT drive me just a tiny bit crazy. Then again, I doubt anyone vacuumed all of the wood shavings from inside the walls UPSTAIRS, and that doesn't drive me crazy. We'll see. Who knows how much time there will be between the end of the electrical and the beginning of the sheet rocking. They tell me THAT depends entirely on the 4-way inspection that has to happen before they can legally sheet rock.

*happy sigh*

I'm just glad it's all getting done.

*excited geeky sigh*

The DVD player is already here and the projector will arrive on Tuesday. Wednesday, the THX-certified Dolby Digital 7.1 receiver will come. I'm sure I'll blog more about that geeky stuff when it gets here.

Incredible.

I really don't know how long it would have taken me to do that. I'm sure it would have taken MUCH longer than two days!

The HVAC guy came back. He finished the vents for the dryer and for the bathroom fan. He patched all of the holes in the furnace ductwork that he made yesterday. (I'm sure he was excited about THAT.)

The framing is complete. They were able to put in the double french doors like we had originally planned. They're off-center in the wall, but it had to be that way. They couldn't take out the roof bearing supports that go all the way to the basement. I have NO problem with that. None. At all. To be honest, it's better that way. It'll provide a more ideal location for the desk in the office on the other side of the doors.

It's fun to walk around down there. It's nice to see what things are going to be like. Yesterday, we freaked out a little about the problems with the HVAC. Today, it's pure excitement!

My wife asked me something tonight that freaked me out for a minute though: Can we get the ping pong table out of the cold storage?

We put it back there because it was one more 300-lb thing that we didn't want to have to cart uptairs to store. But now there is a new wall between the cold storage and the family room. I couldn't remember the width of the new doorway!

A quick trip downstairs made my heart beat normally again. The door to the cold storage and the new doorway are exactly the same width. There will be plenty of room. *whew!*

Framing goes quickly. Really. The framing is already almost complete! We went downstairs to see what had been done so far. It's going to be nice. The floor plan is taking shape, and rather quickly too!

As we looked around, we noticed that the HVAC guy had been there too. The ductwork that brings in fresh air from outside to the furnace had been moved so that it would remain in the same room as the furnace. But as we continued to look around, we started noticing all of the additional ductwork.

WHAT?? Additional ductwork?

Um...

We're doing radiant heating.

So now they're going to have to remove all of the ductwork and patch all of the holes they made in the system to attach the ducts... That'll cut into their profit.

Oops.

Hopefully, that's also the LAST big glitch.

On Friday morning, a flatbed loaded with wood showed up and dumped its load.  On Saturday night, it snowed on the wood.  On Sunday morning, I brushed most of the snow off of the wood.

This morning, I was expecting the workmen to show up and start installing said wood into what will be the walls of the rooms in my finished basement.   I left before anybody showed up.

However...  My wife  saw someone outside waiting when she left.  I decided to stop by during my lunch break and check things out.

About half of the wood was gone!  There was a truck up by the house!  The framers had started working!  WOOHOO!!!

I went inside and found one cat (the indifferent one) sleeping on my bed.  The other cat (the neurotic one) was hiding under one of my boys' beds.  There was plenty of banging and sawing and other sounds coming from the basement.

I'm excited to go down after they leave and check out what they've done!

The project is now underway!

After a weekend of complete technical stupidity, I had to tackle something technical... maybe just to prove to myself that I wasn't completely technically inept.

When I moved to my new house, I couldn't believe the ugly mess the phone connection was. My father-in-law did telephone connections for his career. He told me that this mess was rather unbelievable.

See for yourself:

Upscale Downstairs came today and chalked out the basement walls today. They will start framing next week. I figured that if I wanted to do something about this ugly mess, I would have to do it VERY soon.

I bought a Leviton media center enclosure this morning and organized this tangled mess of cable and phone connections into this:

VERY nice! Expandable! And it will be accessible after the basement is finished!

See! I'm not COMPLETELY technically inept. I'm pretty sure it works too, because I'm connected to the Internet right now via DSL, which is now running through this new media center.

Yesterday, I got MOST of the rest of the way ready for the basement construction project.

Before work, I dismantled the treadmill and went to Home Depot to buy a locking doorknob for the door to the downstairs stairway. Sure, it's not going to stop a REAL burglar, but it will help keep honest people honest.

During lunch, I went to a rental center and rented a furniture dolly.

After work, one of my brothers came over and helped me move a cabinet up into the bonus room, the treadmill into the piano room, and the freezer into the garage.

I spent the next couple of hours defrosting the freezer, building shelves in the garage, and rearranging stuff in the garage.

Then I took the doorknob off of the downstairs doorway, but before putting the new one on, I discovered that the supplied key in the new doorknob didn't fit. *ugh*

All that's left I can do on Saturday. I'll move my tools and associated stuff out into the garage in the space I cleared out when I rearranged out there. This morning, I traded the doorknob for one that has a working key and I bought plastic sheeting to cover the stuff left in the cold storage. I think the car top carrier is still downstairs, but it's light and easy to move.

The very last thing I'll do is change the furnace filter and then we'll not be allowed to occupy the basement again until the work is done. It's scheduled to be done by 27 April.

We finalized the floor plan last night.  There were a few small changes, but nothing major.  It's going to be VERY nice.

On Monday, we have a "pre-construction" meeting where we meet our project manager and give them the first chunk of money.  We already paid a deposit of $1000, but at the pre-construction meeting, the check we'll write will have another place to the left of the decimal point.  By then, we'll have to have everything construction-related decided.  How many extra zones do we want on the radiant heating system?  Where do we want carpet/tile/vinyl?  How many light fixtures should go where?  Which home theater package am I going with?  The list goes on and on.

A week from today, we have our "selection" meeting where we pick our carpet and tile and paint colors and fixtures.  What color do we want our countertops?  What color should the toilet be?  What kind of hardware (doorknobs, light fixtures, etc.) do we want?  How about light switches and plugs?  This is another long list of items we have to check off one by one.

I'm glad we never had a home built.  There are too many things to decide!

If you're an avid reader of my blog (or is that rabid?) you're probably going to get tired of reading about my basement finishing project over the next four months.  Yep, both of you.

This afternoon, our General Contractor is bring CAD drawings of the floor plan to our home and we're going to make adjustments that we need and the the floor plan will be finalized.

One small problem we have is that we're putting a full bathroom in the basement.  The bathtub/shower surround will be up against a window.  The window has plain old normal see-through glass in it.  There's nothing like showering in full view of the neighbors, no?

Back when my oldest son was born I worked for a window manufacturing plant, so one of my "skills" is that I can replace glass in vinyl windows.  I called today with measurements and all things considered (like double-sided tape and a pair of rubberized gloves so I don't need stitches later), I can replace the glass myself for less than $100.  At my next meeting, I'll find out what the contractor will charge to replace the window.  If it's enough of a difference, I'll just do it myself.

It's exciting though!  They're starting work in just over two weeks!

We've been snowed on. We were almost snowed in. Almost.

My driveway is a pain when it snows.

Correction: My driveway is a pain for adults when it snows. All of the kids in the neighborhood want to sled down my driveway when it snows. We had a little bit of snow a couple of weeks ago and my sons' friends were calling to see if they wanted to play in the snow.

However, it's a pain to shovel.

On Sunday morning, we woke up to about six inches of new, heavy, wet snow. I figured out that it's easiest to shovel the steep parts by letting gravity do most of the work. I just start shoveling downward and pretty soon, I have a pretty good pile of snow moving pretty quickly to the bottom of the driveway.

That means that I have a LOT of snow to move when the driveway is actually clear, or there won't be any way to get our non-all-wheel-drive vehicles out. The Subaru would love the challenge. The Saturns would scream in terror, probably oiling themselves with angst.

So I used a scoop shovel to throw the piled-up snow to the sides of the driveway.

When we got home from church, an additional two inches of heavy, wet snow had fallen. So I repeated the process.

I don't know if a snow blower is even an option. I'm afraid that I would get it to the bottom of the driveway and it would remain there until Spring, unable to climb back up.

Today, I can point at all of the muscles one uses when shoveling snow. All of them are sore and incapable of moving quickly. If I were in an anatomy/physiology class right now, memorization of muscle groups would be a lot easier. I would simply rank them in order of most painful to least painful.

If, for ANY reason, we're EVER going to have to replace the driveway, I'm installing radiant heating. Maybe when I get older and less able to shovel snow, I'll accidentally jackhammer holes in the driveway.

Then again, maybe I'll to it today.