Ping Pong, Piano and Movies: Love Our Basement!

Yay!  Our basement is now a useable space!

Oh my goodness!  I haven't posted since November?  Well, I guess I'd better catch you up on things.  The basement is mostly done.  We've still got some details to take care of but it is useable and so far we haven't found too many screwups. (I'll blog about those later...)

We are really happy with how it turned out.  Our carpenter did a really nice job with the post covers.  He mitered the lengths so it looks like a solid piece of wood.  The only issue is that the posts have sharp edges that would really hurt if someone bumped into them.  Luckily all of our kids are older now so I don't have to worry about toddler head injuries!

The kids wanted to keep it like this-no furniture, just open space

It took FOREVER to sand, stain and seal the woodwork.  Did I mention previously how poor the workmanship was on the Mastercraft doors we got from Menard's?  Maybe it was just a bad batch?  We've gotten Mastercraft doors before that we were really happy with but this time they were awful.

Our poor-man's home theater set up...looks silly, works great!

One of our design flaws was that we didn't extend the wall far enough past the fireplace.  There was a reason why we did that but the result was that there just isn't enough seating space.  So, we put together a poor man's home entertainment area.  It looks ridiculous but it's really comfy and uses some couches and a wood platform I didn't know what to do with.

Hopefully this works to cut down on the furnace noise...

Now it's just a matter of handling the final details.  My husband kicked some DIY booty this past weekend, insulating the furnace room in an afternoon.  Haven't tested it out yet to see if it makes a difference though.

I still have to find a sink for the bathroom and a cat door for the furnace room so the kitties can access their new litter box location with ease.

Doubling Our Space

It's strange-the original owners intended to
finish the basement but never installed a sump so that was one of the
first things we had to do

So, we've started remodeling our basement.   We've been pretty busy so we've hired out not only the electrical and plumbing but also the framing and drywall work.  Since we aren't doing the work ourselves, there's not much to blog about.  I will mention cabinets though.  We just need a small vanity for the bathroom but finding one turned to out be rather hard.  The local cabinet maker who did our kitchen cabinets wasn't very interested in such a small job and the stuff from Home Depot and Menard's was surprisingly limited and poor quality for the price.  I was thinking Ready-To-Assemble might be a better deal but the shipping cost for one cabinet really jacked up the cost.   I found a company that makes bamboo cabinets out in California, Laguna Bamboo, that had some really nice cabinets and they were willing to ship to Wisconsin, but in the end we ordered semi-custom instead.  I'm going to keep Laguna in mind though for when we redo our master bath...

We used rigid foam board to insulate the walls
and metal studs for all except the bathroom
since no walls will be load-bearing.

Oh, and we thought we were going to have to take the frame off the patio door to get the one-piece shower we ordered into the basement but it fit just fine.  We got a 36" wide unit so it was pretty small.  We had a hard time purchasing it though.  We found it on the Delta website, ordered it from Home Depot, found out HD couldn't order it because it was a Lowe's exclusive, and then got the run-around from Lowe's and Delta but finally got one after tons of phone calls and losing a couple of months in the process.  It's just want we wanted though so I guess it's all good.

The future bathroom is small but will have a sink,
toilet and shower stall

It might just be a gimmick but we figured we'd try
out the Platon sub-floor that put a small space between
the concrete and the sub-floor to keep it warm and dry.
If we're lucky it'll help with reducing radon as well.

We have about one or two more work days for plumbing and two for electrical.  We will be putting in electrical heat under the bathroom floor and an automatic humidity-sensing fan by the shower.  We also need to update our water heater to handle another bathroom and solve some problems with our existing water flow.  Once those are out of the way, it just drywall and flooring and finish work.  And then we'll have doubled our space!

The Next Big Thing

It's been a while since I've had anything to post.  After we had the concrete patio installed back in June, we started on the basement. It is currently unfinished but has lots of potential. 

We drew up a floor plan, chatted with our local building inspector, had our electrician come out to assess the situation and started talking to plumbers.  Our home was built in the wild and crazy days before building to code was a necessity and our basement is lacking in some basics.  Like plumbing....any kind of plumbing.  No sump, no drain, no anything.

Having the plumbers come out was informative.  One particularly impressive plumber pointed out several flaws in our first floor plumbing and also noticed some issues with the basement.  He was astonished to see that our furnace outputs its condensation directly to the outside, not to a sump.  He was even more astonished to hear that we haven't had an issue with it freezing in the winter.  (I suppose that's something we get to look forward to. )



See that black tube on the far wall?  That's where the water
goes when our softener is flushed out.  (Definetely not to code.)

Our water softener water is also dumped outside year-round.  We were told that typically people have that waste water enter their septic all year, but sometimes, people have it dumped outside, except for the winter when it is sent to the septic.  Again, the plumbers were puzzled that it hadn't frozen.  (I admit I felt rather foolish; I hadn't noticed the rubber tubing that leads to an outside wall and had just assumed that there was a floor drain.  Now I know why there is a continually wet patch in my back yard.) 

Anyhow, another question was what building materials should we use?  We had noticed that there had been water in the basement some time in the past and had several basement waterproofers come out to look at us.  Surprisingly, despite how bad I thought things were, none of them were particularly worried.  After talking with the professionals, reading books, talking to the building inspector and surfing hours and hours on the 'net, we've decided to hold off on any waterproofing work. 



The floor plan was pretty easy to work out;

all the living space will be where are windows/outside egress
and since there's already a fireplace installed,

it was simple to determine where the main entertainment area goes.



Seriously, just to find out whether we should use plastic sheeting on the walls took days to figure out.  Every source said something different...so confusing! After that, we had to choose studs and insulation.  My husband wanted to use normal wood studs and fiberglass insulation but I feel that keeping the basement mold- and mildew-free is a priority so we decided to try metal studs and foam board insulation.  Again, so much conflicting info out there I have no idea if it's the right thing to do or not.  I guess we'll find out.

We patched some small cracks in our concrete pad and concrete block walls that the waterproofers had pointed out, and put down some of the metal track for where the interior walls will go.  We didn't get far though. 

Hubby decided to get a little crazy at a party and rolled a go-kart, busting his elbow.  That resulted in surgery and a 6 week 'no lift, no strain' command.  It was going to cost about $500 to get a sump drilled and installed into our concrete floor so he wanted to do it himself, but now we need to wait until he's healed.  With our unexpected medical bills, we need to limit remodeling costs as much as we can, meaning no hiring of handymen to speed us on our way.  So basically, other than putting in a few studs and some insulation panels, we haven't done much.  Summer just isn't the best time for a massive project.  After all, that's what a long, boring winter is for, right? 

Efflorescence on the back wall indicates moisture coming through the concrete block.