Work Done Since the Last Post

So I have been so busy there has been just no time to do any blog stuff. Instead, I just took a video of everything to explain it. The first video shows all the framing work that has been done, some electrical stuff, and our new bathtub. The second video shows our new service box. Things are looking good!

Framing and Furnace Moving from 6-14-09 to 7-5-09

Lots of stuff has happened in the last several weekends. Basically, we have framed about 13 different partitions, ran our new HVAC lines, moved our water heater, installed a new furnace, and moved our gas line. Needless to say, I am exhausted. Here are some pictures in chronological order:

June 12th to 14th:

We got new HVAC lines run. There were no dedicated HVAC lines for the basement. This made it very cold. We installed 5 total, but here are the new lines for the family room, second bedroom, and our bedroom:




On the same weekend we also got a wall in our closet done plusa ledge wall. You can see that in the next picture. This is in our future bedroom. Additionally, you can see I constructed the ledge by extending it over the bottom plate of the extior wall will 3/4" plywood for the top piece. This makes for a super strong ledge! Additionally, it creates a void space between the wood and the concrete that will be filled up with spray foam. You don't want wood on concrete contact or it may eventually rot your wood if it is not treated or a speicies that is naturally water resistant.


Around this same time I also got the old furnace removed. Here is what that looks like:



On the weekend of 6/27 and 6/28 we got a ton of framing done. Here is all that framing:

Second Bedroom Doorway and
Wall with Cold Air Return

East Ledge in Our Bedroom

For the ledges it is worth showing that I have been using brackets tied into the concrete to make them more stable. They are already very stable, and with the spray foam they will be even more stable. However, I wanted to give them extra strength. What I did is used angle brackets that are screwed into the concrete with Tapcon screws. I also construction adhesive the bracket to the concrete to make it that much stronger. Finally, I nail the bracket to the stud. That ledge isn't going anywhere! Here is a picture of a bracket:

The same weekend we got up the south wall in our family room. That was pretty hard because the wall was 16 feet long! Here is a picture:

Finally, we got a small wall under the stairs done. We are finishing the area under the stairs so the kids have a cool little place to play. Here is a picture of that wall:

The 4th of July weekend was a long weekend. Not only because I was off work, but because there was a lot of work to do! This is what we got done:

First, we installed a new furnace and moved our water heater. That was a huge project that took a ton of time, but I'm glad its done. We also moved the gas line this weekend. The importance of that is now we are able to run the gas outside for a future grill hookup someday! The furnace and water heater looks a lot better than the old one did:

After that we did a bunch of framing:

The next picture shows the center wall of our closet. Since I didn't show this before let me explain. Our closet will have to separate walk in sides, but we will share a shelf system. So its like we each have our own walk in closet but we really don't. In the center, there is space for a 37" HDTV. This is a built in ledge as you can see below (some stuff is in front of it). Behind it I will have a shelf for the Dish Network STB

Second Bedroom West Wall
With Ledge (this is where we sleep now!)

Second Bedroom Closet Door and
Wall with Ledge in Closet

Storage Room West and North Walls

Sorry for the giant post! I've been working so hard on the weekends and even some during the week on this it is hard to find time to post. Oh well, now its time to go to work!

Subfloor is Done!

The subfloor for the entire basement is finished! This is what we spent last weekend and this weekend doing.

A couple things to note... If you ever plan on doing your on sandwich subfloor stagger the joints. In other words, from sheet to sheet, never have a continuous join accross the whole floor. I staggered my joints. Between the tounge and groove OSB and the staggered joints the subfloor is super stable. Additionally, anywhere where there was a small gap from sheet to sheet I filled it up with construction adhesive. It is one strong floor!

Here are the final subfloor pics:

Wall Drains - Memorial Day Weekend

Two weeks ago, my Memorial Day weekend was not all about BBQing. That weekend was about disconnecting all the ABS drains in my house, putting the subfloor down around them, reconnecting the drains, and putting up a 6" partition. This took an absolute ton of work. My dad and I each worked about 33 hours that weekend getting all that done.

First, we had to disconnect the washing machine drain and supply lines. This meant that we could not use the kitchen drain upstairs either, but that didn't stop it from being used a couple of times! >:-( Anyhow, we got a section of that 3" drain but out and then we drilled a 4.5" hole in the OSB with a hole saw, and a similar hole in the foam. We got that piece of subfloor nailed down and we then began reassembling that drain. Here is a pic of that drain:

New Cleanout and Tee for Kitchen
and Washing Machine Drain

Once we got that done we began working on the downstairs bathroom sink drain and drain for the upstairs bathroom. Of course, we did the subfloor at the same time! Here are some pics of that process:

Getting Ready to do the Subfloor
for Bathroom Drains

Additionally, we ran into a problem with the venting because it was not easy to run the vent to the new washer drain. So we used an admittance valve and tied the old vent to the vent for the bathroom, with a slope of course! Here are some pics of that:

Tied Vents

Washing Machine Vent

Once we got the subfloor and drains constructed, we had to get the wall back up and all the drains in the wall. This is what we spent all day Monday doing. However, it was worth it, because this is what we ended up with:

The Slab is Poured!

As I write this, it is currently 80 degrees in my basement. Why? Because the concrete slab has finally been refilled, and I have the heat up to help it dry! This is one of the few things I am not doing myself. I had FM Concrete of Aurora do the work and they did an amazing job. It is nice to have a "concrete guy" that I can trust with my concrete needs.

As you can see, we no longer have a hole!

The Entire Redone Slab

There it is, the guys at FM Concrete poured this in about 45 minutes. Super fast! As you can see we have a stub up for the utility sink that will be in the storage room, a new floor drain, a box for the bathtub drain, and the vent for the tub right next to the box.

Where the Toilet Will Be

As you can see the toilet drain is stubbed up, so when we put the new floor down we will be able to cut it flush with the new floor.

Drains in Concrete

Well, after fighting off the flu, I can finally put this post up. We've had our floor drain, utility sink drain, shower drain, and toilet drain all done for awhile. However, as I mentioned, I had the flu, so I could not get these up sooner than this.

Anyhow, here are all of our new drains. We will get this inspected Friday and hopefully cover it up over the weekend!

All of the drains. From left to right:
floor drain, utility sink drain, and bathtub drain.

All of the cast iron drain pipes had to be replaced because they were rusty and fell apart on us as we replaced them. Luckily, we were able to get to a connection that is in pretty good condition. At this place we used an SV Joint to join up the new PVC pipes with the old cast iron pipes. The floor is about a half inch lower than the rest of the concrete. The utility sink will have use something like a DeFracnco valve for venting. The tub drain is now in the correct spot and tied to the existing vent. That vent has a clean out, so if it ever gets stopped up we can clean it out real easily.

Toilet Drain

The toilet drain is stubbed up so that after I have the concrete poured, we can put the sub floor and floor around it. This allows us to cut it down to the exact floor height later when we finish the bathroom.

We will see how the inspection goes this Friday! Hopefully well!

The Demolition is Finished!

Last weekend we finished demolishing the other half of the basement. Here are some pictures of what it looked like beforehand:

Where Our Future Closet Will Be.

Half of Our Old Laundry Room.

The Outside of Our Old Room.

Here is something I uncovered while tearing down our bedroom wall from the picture above. This was behind the first layer of sheetrock...

If at first you don't succeed; try, try, try, try, try, try again...
Finally! There's that dang stud!

That's a good example of why I have to completely redo everything, huh?

Here are some after pictures:

Looking Across the Basement

What Used to Be Our Bedroom

The next steps will be to get the plumbing done for the floor drains. That is already broken up and exposed. Once we get that done, we will be able to get it inspected, and then pour that concrete. After that, we should really be able to rock the framing!

More Bedroom Partitions!

This Saturday we finished all the partitions we needed to finish to move into the first bedroom. As you may remember we are living downstairs while we do this basement remodel. The first picture shows the closet that has the two partitions we put up today. It was pretty tricky to put up one of the partitions because went around the main support and HVAC supply line. We pretty much got it in one shot with a little struggle, but it really turned out great!

Bedroom Closet

Partition that Separates Bedroom From Storage Room

Once we got the partitions done we sheet rocked the storage room side of the partitions. This is because we will be moving the water heater and installing a new furnace in the storage and both will got up close to the wall. However, we only sheet rocked one side because we still have electrical work and inspections to do before we sheet rock the bedroom side. Notice how good of a job we did sheet rocking around the main support and HVAC line. Measure twice and cut once!

Storage Room - Water heater will go in the far corner
and the furnace will go right next to it.

Bedroom closet extending into the storage room

Tomorrow is Sunday and we will put up plastic over the areas we can't sheet rock and we will move into this bedroom. Then, we will demolish the rest of the basement!

First Wall Partitions

What makes our basement remodel so hard is that we have to live through it. Literally. There are only two bedrooms upstairs and those bedrooms are used by our two kids. This means that our bedroom is still not torn out, but it needs to be. The plan is to get this first room in the basement framed, plastic it off, and then move our bedroom into it. This will allow us to rip down the rest of the basement and continue putting the sandwich subfloor down throughout rest of the basement.

We are hoping to get the partitions up fast. What has been helping this whole process go faster is to cut the 2x4's ahead of time (during the work week) and then nail them together on the weekend with an air powered Hitachi NR 83A Strip Nailer that I borrowed from my uncle. This nailer is great for shoot the 3.25" nails into the studs to construct the partitions. Of course, if it can handle the 3.25" nails, it really great for the 2.25" nails that secure the base plate to the subfloor. This is much better than trying to nail the 2x4's together by hand!

Here are some pictures of the first partitions we have put up. Note that the partitions are built to be floating walls. Due to the crazy soil we have in Colorado, floating walls are necessary to prevent your walls from being destroyed.


Here is a picture of what the closet will look like. So far we only have the base plates down, but we are hoping to get the partitions done for the closet this weekend.

Like I said a little bit ago: we have to live through this basement remodel. This makes for some interesting construction challenges like when the subfloor starts to encroach on the laundry room area. As you can see in the next picture, we had to temporarily put pieces of insulation and plywood down under the washer and dryer to keep them level.

Stay tuned for more progress this coming weekend!

Starting the Sandwich Subfloor

The first step in our basement remodel is to fasten the sandwich subfloor to the concrete slab. As you can see in the pictures below we put down 1" of polyisocyanurate foam with aluminum foil on the sides. To prevent any cold or moisture from coming up through this insulation we used Tyvek tape (aka sheathing tape) to seal the seams of the insulation. The following pictures show the foam with taped seams:

Did you see my Dad taking a measurement for the next piece of insulation? He's been a huge help in helping with all of the house remodeling and finishing we have been involved in.

On top of the insulating foam we used 3/4" tongue and groove OSB to finish the floor. Once all of these pieces were in the proper places we used a Hilti DX350 nail gun to secure the sandwich subfloor to the concrete slab using 2.75" nails. The following pictures show the floor fastened with the 3/4" tongue and groove OSB:

The edges of the subfloor are spaced at leat 1/2" from the foundation walls. This allows for expansion. That gap is filled with spray foam so that the entire floor will be insulated. The OSB makes it so the floor is sturdy for some types of flooring like tiling.

Well, almost the whole basement will be done with this subfloor. The storage room will not be to allow for proper drainage of the floor drain.

First Tear Down

The last people that lived in our house "finished" our basement. However, they did not get a permit and they did not follow sound building practices. For example, all the studs in the non-load bearing partitions were more than 16" apart from each other and some studs were even more than 24" from each other. I suppose that is one way to cut your basement finish costs...

Needless to say, we had to tear out everything that they did. Since we are living in our basement while we do this remodel we tore down the west side of the basement first. Here are some pics of what that looked like right after we tore everything out:

First Post

Hello World! Welcome to our blog detailing our crazy adventure of finishing our basement. We just started with the building recently. Soon, we will have pictures of the whole deal to show you, so stay tuned!