Why I Oughta...

Since the day we bought the house, the basement stairs have always been one of the worst-built features of our house.  They're short, uneven, and difficult to walk down.  When we re-built the house, we moved the opening of the basement from the south side to the north side (out of the kitchen and into a hallway), but that's about it.  Until the basement project started.  Then, I figured if we were spending a boatload of dough to finish the space, we needed to get serious about the stairs. The problem?  When they built these, they did just about the best they could - there isn't a lot of headroom and that's why they cut down the runs and the rises. So, what was the solution?  Rebuild them and split that platform into 2 'wedge-shaped' stairs. Here's a shot of what I saw yesterday after the the stairs had been torn out and the new stringers had been installed. The stairs have made a big change on the feel of the basement - adding a lot of ease to gett

The framing is done*.  The soffits are built.  All the various ducts are hidden behind these wooden structures so we can get the drywall hung. All that's left is the plumbing and some insulation before the drywall crew shows up. *by saying 'done', I mean MOSTLY done.  There's a few little things that I have to finish up.  But the bulk of the work is done.

The Direct Vent firebox is framed in.  We left the 2X4's in the center laying behind it so we can do the connections of gas/electric and also the duct work.  I decided against the raised hearth because of the safety issues and will just figure out what the extra pipe might look like.

With all the construction going on in the basement, I just couldn't help myself.  Our old furnace was working just fine, but for the past 2 years, I've sunk more than $1500 into fixing it.  I'd been eyeing a new high-efficiency furnace for a while and with all the duct work that I had going on last week, I finally took the plunge.  I went with a Bryant 95% efficiency - replacing what the installer said was a 45% efficiency furnace.  I'm hoping we'll notice the difference in our utility bills this winter and start to recoup the big upfront costs of this beautiful box. With all the walls going up and the investment being made to make the basement liveable, I figured I should just buck up and make the move right now - before space got too small and moving this was going to get harder. It is MUCH quieter and is a 3-speed variable fan, so it just runs a bit more wisely than the old one.  Time will tell if we'll be able to operate the unit at a lower temperature

Arriving in the mail recently is the November edition of This Old House magazine.  On the cover was this very pretty fireplace.  It is a good inspiration for what we're going to do in the basement.  Aside from a different color tile and a raised hearth, I like the white trim and mirror detail above the mantel.

The basement walls are starting to take shape.  Lots of dust in the air, so the photo is a bit blurry, but on the left is going to be a fridge and bar area.  On the right is a closet and a bathroom.  Electric is going to go up this week, plumbing at the end of the week, followed (quickly) by drywall next week!

The main room ends up being 18' X 24' with just one post down the middle.  Going to be a fun rumpus room for me and a perfect playroom for the Babe.

Thanks to my brother-in-law* Bill, I now have a plan for hiding our water meter, our electric ground and house some A/V equipment in the corner of our basement.  I asked him to help me conceptualize what something could look like and he whipped up this beautiful rendering. Pay no attention to the scrap paper he used - but focus on the drawing.  The bookshelves on the right have 'rails' that run from floor to ceiling that 'contain' the pipes.  Pretty clever design.

I'm *trying* to get serious about finishing our basement in the coming months but before we can do anything, we have to waterproof the space.  When it rains, we don't get water, but there's definitely seepage at the cove, so that means that before I invest a cent in the basement, I want to solve that problem.  In order to solve that seepage problem, we have to completely clear the space out.  I've started to pull out the stuff we want to keep (Christmas Decorations, Halloween stuff, etc), but there is still so much to sort through.  Much of it was pure junk.  Left over bricks and boards and old kitchen cabinets that I thought I would use during the construction/renovation but upon reflection I just don't want to deal with.  Because of that, I called the Junk Platoon.  For a few hundred bucks, they sent out two guys who cleaned out everything - and drug it through the half door on the side of our house. We filled a 10 yard truck pretty easily.   Here's some a

I heard from a few different people that my post last year reminding everyone to change their furnace filter helped them out and motivated them to head down to their basement to check the age of their filter.  Being deep in the heart of winter - with everyone's furnaces running all the time - I figured it was time to mention it again.  If you haven't done it in a while.... GO CHANGE YOUR FURNACE FILTER! In fact...if you are like me, and prone to forget when you put one in and when it is time to take one out, our good friends at Menards have the answer:   An automated nag to remind you to change the filter .  You set the date you installed the filter, the duration (how long you want it to last) and viola(!), Menards does the hard part of remembering when you need to head down to the basement.  There is even settings for fertilizing your lawn, too!  (I know...this is a convenient way of selling more products, but at least there is *some* value to the consumer!) Of course,

If you know the difference between, say, a  Holtzapffel-style cabinet maker's bench and a split-top Roubo-style workbench , then this post will not impress you. (Bill Fox...I'm looking in your direction.) But...those of you guys who are cramped up in a condo somewhere on the northside and long for a little man-retreat, then you're going to be jealous! Anyway...back to the story.  Starting a few weeks back, I began to beat my cabin fever by beginning to organize our basement.  Our basement is probably like a lot of basements: unfinished, messy, damp, and quite a bit disorganized. During construction (or re-construction), the basement housed just about everything we owed that wasn't in our POD - and it was messy down there.  Once we moved in, we started to put everything that didn't have a home down there.  Over time, I bought some shelving units and began to put some of our stuff on the shelves, but in no particular order. We then inherited some of my siste