Sunday, July 24, 2011

Basement Framing & Electrical Rough-In Complete

Now that we are under contract on the new place, the basement renovation kicks into high gear. Much like in December of 2008 when we decided to refinance our mortgage and creating a deadline to finish renovations, we are now in a similar position. We want our house occupied by a renter on 9/1. Yowza. With a basement under construction, a new house upcoming, a trip to Irelend, and finding out what the hell we need to do to rent the place the next month will be crazy. Time to kick things in gear...

In keeping with this, we are bringing in some help on the drywall. We got a bunch of quotes that were surprisingly reasonable. We ended up picking a mid-cost quote of a guy that I trusted. We then got him to throw in a bunch of extra work like hanging all the door jambs and doors and fixing a three switch that had gotten the best of me. An aside, when picking contractors, I usually go with my gut. This is never the high cost bidder, but usually someone at the mid to low end that will end up working with me a bit. This sometimes means quality is 90% instead of 100% but the lower costs have been things that I've been able to help fix.

Here is where we stand. Coming down the stairs, all the paneling, plaster and lathe, and most importantly the stairs were ripped out and recessed lights on a 3 way switch were put in. It looks great now.


Basement Reno - Framing & Electrical Rough-In

During the renovation it didn't look as good. I was hoping to keep the stairs as is, but after looking at them in detail they needed to be replaced. They literally bounced when you walked on them and were held up by about 6 nails total. Scary. Luckily, my amazing father agreed flew in from Detroit to help frame the basement and (little did he know at the time) replace the stairs. This basement would not be done if not for him. As you can see, the stairs were scary.

basement stairs

Walking to the bottom of the stairs and looking out things look much different than before. Before, it was a pile of crap.

dirty basement with captions

The view looks much better now. All the recessed lights are in, the plumbing lines and electrical to the second floor have all been rerouted to increase the headroom, and insulation is in place to help isolate the sound from the first floor living room.

Basement Reno - Framing & Electrical Rough-In

A look back at the stairs and portion of the remaining basement that will remain shows the recessed lights back in that area. I put the lights on a motion sensing/IR switch so when you walk in the space with your arms full of laundry you don't need to find a switch. We were talking about making a bar or closet in the area to the left but now that we are going to rent the space, this isn't a priority.

Basement Reno - Framing & Electrical Rough-In

To the right of the stairs is the framing around the HVAC. I added a small step at the bottom of the stairs to steer you toward the center of the room and away from the framing around the HVAC return. I was going to put a custom wine rack in this area, but again, this isn't a priority at this point. I added electricals circuit here in case I want to get fancy in the future with lighting the wine or potenially add a small bar over here.

Basement Reno - Framing & Electrical Rough-In

Walking a few steps forward, you can see more of what the living space will look like. A small closet is on the left, and I made a bench underneath the window to fill this dead space. On the right, there is a storage area that is accessed through the utility room door. Originally I was going to just do a soffit in this area, but the HVAC and water heater exhaust would still have been too low to make this area usable so I just closed this space in. The soffit change resulted swapping the seating area to the left instead of the right, but it shouldn't be that big of an issue.

Basement Reno - Framing & Electrical Rough-In

Looking back toward the stairs you can see this utility room. This room required moving the water heater to allow one door to be able to service the equipment while allowing space into the closet space to the left.

Basement Reno - Framing & Electrical Rough-In

While overall I don't like using contractors, it is nice to know that by the end of this week the drywall will be in and mudded and all doors hung. As I type, guys are loading drywall into the house. Hopefuly it will be hung with a first coat of mud in place by the end of today. :-)

18 comments:

Étienne said...

Thanks for sharing this valuable information with us. Nice post. I like your idea I think this is good idea for basement improvement. This is really helping. Pushing all the stuff to one side of the basement was the easy part. Now that the office is built, I have to figure out what to do with all the stuff I had in what is now the office.
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Hi,

I have a quick question about your blog, do you think you could e-mail me?

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echarles2311 said...

hello , your home looks very nice. Can you tell me what contractor you use,Iam in the process of during the same for a home that I have had for several years and have decided to do something with. The size is about the same as your's. Any info on the contractor will be highly apprecaited..

charles
echarles2311@yahoo.com

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trademarkconstruct said...

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Unknown said...

Very nice blog! Sad to see that you haven't updated your blog for a while. I also have a blog (not as personal as yours) but it keeps me busy. Check it out at http://plumbers-edmonton.ca/. Drop by and leave a comments.

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Unknown said...

Hi, it's Lief again. Please drop me a line at Plumbers Edmonton if you decide to write another blog.

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Unknown said...

I really like the examples of the work that you were doing. It can be hard to do good work with renovations when you are on a deadline. The basement after framing looks so much better than the before photos. I like how you did some things yourself and got contractors for other things. I think people forget how nice it can be to not have to worry about doing it yourself. framing service

Unknown said...

Hi Corey- Not sure if this will get to you but we are considering digging our basement (and then finishing it) and Id love to briefly chat with you before doing so to minimize our mistakes along the way. Would you be willing to grab a coffee? If so, could you post your email anywhere?

Thanks,
Andres

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