(From Joel)
Well, it's early July and I am pushing as hard as I can to keep my promise of having the basement done by the end of the month*.
As you can see, there is already an asterisk on the statement, as I won't be able to build the bathroom yet. The current stairs will have to stay where they are, at least until we build the new basement stairwell and cut the new door on the south side of the house.
But by the end of the month there should be two large rooms down there, where it is a minimum of 15 degrees cooler than the rest of the house. That's a good thing, as today looks to be our first 100 degree day of the year.
The inviting coolness of the basement is where I spent this Sunday. I've started to experiment with framing, which is incredibly satisfying, but I've had to put that on hold to take care of some details.
The electrical in the basement is (was) a total rat's nest. It made no sense, it wasn't entirely safe, and there was a lot of it. I've spent the last couple of days taking it all out, and running new (temporary) wiring to the basic fixtures needed upstairs. The second floor still doesn't have any electricity, and the kitchen light still isn't wired, but the rat's nest is now gone and I can run my plumbing and new gas lines.
This is the rat's nest on the floor (Baker for scale). It actually looks small in this picture. It's really about 1' tall by 6' around. Hopefully I can take all that steel jacketed cable to the scrap yard. I've probably got 1500 lbs of steel scrap stored up, which would be worth somewhere around $75.
These are my nice clear joist bays. There's still a bit of cable hanging here and there, but it's mostly clear. The hanging cables go through the floor up to the first and second floors. Some will yet be re-connected, but most of it isn't worth the time.
When I quit working for the night at 11:00, this is what I looked like.
This may be as dirty as I have ever been, and I felt the need to immortalize it. If my expression looks a bit crazed, it may have something to do with the two liters of Coke that I drank yesterday. I normally try to stick to caffeine free Coke, so I wasn't really thinking about the buzz I was getting until I polished off the bottle of Coke Classic. Can't say I slept much. I'm glad to report that after washing off the dirt, my injury count for the weekend was low. My hands are a bit chafed and blistered, but the cuts are all small and the quantity of blood lost was well below my average for a weekend of house work.
Hopefully by the end of the week I'll be able to start framing, and if that is the case I can have the framing, plumbing, electrical and insulation done by the end of the weekend. That means drywall may come as soon as next week! There are lots of details between here and drywall, so I won't make guarantees, but I'm still hopeful that I can at least offer Hun and Baker a cool bedroom and living room downstairs by the end of the month.
Lastly, I have a very cute dog.
Well, it's early July and I am pushing as hard as I can to keep my promise of having the basement done by the end of the month*.
As you can see, there is already an asterisk on the statement, as I won't be able to build the bathroom yet. The current stairs will have to stay where they are, at least until we build the new basement stairwell and cut the new door on the south side of the house.
But by the end of the month there should be two large rooms down there, where it is a minimum of 15 degrees cooler than the rest of the house. That's a good thing, as today looks to be our first 100 degree day of the year.
The inviting coolness of the basement is where I spent this Sunday. I've started to experiment with framing, which is incredibly satisfying, but I've had to put that on hold to take care of some details.
The electrical in the basement is (was) a total rat's nest. It made no sense, it wasn't entirely safe, and there was a lot of it. I've spent the last couple of days taking it all out, and running new (temporary) wiring to the basic fixtures needed upstairs. The second floor still doesn't have any electricity, and the kitchen light still isn't wired, but the rat's nest is now gone and I can run my plumbing and new gas lines.
This is the rat's nest on the floor (Baker for scale). It actually looks small in this picture. It's really about 1' tall by 6' around. Hopefully I can take all that steel jacketed cable to the scrap yard. I've probably got 1500 lbs of steel scrap stored up, which would be worth somewhere around $75.
These are my nice clear joist bays. There's still a bit of cable hanging here and there, but it's mostly clear. The hanging cables go through the floor up to the first and second floors. Some will yet be re-connected, but most of it isn't worth the time.When I quit working for the night at 11:00, this is what I looked like.
This may be as dirty as I have ever been, and I felt the need to immortalize it. If my expression looks a bit crazed, it may have something to do with the two liters of Coke that I drank yesterday. I normally try to stick to caffeine free Coke, so I wasn't really thinking about the buzz I was getting until I polished off the bottle of Coke Classic. Can't say I slept much. I'm glad to report that after washing off the dirt, my injury count for the weekend was low. My hands are a bit chafed and blistered, but the cuts are all small and the quantity of blood lost was well below my average for a weekend of house work.
Hopefully by the end of the week I'll be able to start framing, and if that is the case I can have the framing, plumbing, electrical and insulation done by the end of the weekend. That means drywall may come as soon as next week! There are lots of details between here and drywall, so I won't make guarantees, but I'm still hopeful that I can at least offer Hun and Baker a cool bedroom and living room downstairs by the end of the month.Lastly, I have a very cute dog.
Labels: Basement
posted by Joel at
9:17 AM
1 Comments:
Notice that all of the previous posts were in the plural, as in "WE". All of this work in the basement since the concrete was poured was all Joel. He's worked really hard to get it this far and we're looking forward to spending more time in the basement.
I took that picture of Baker on the couch. Monday mornings must be so depressing for him, probably because he sees us getting up, showering and getting dress -- back into the weekday routine. He left the bedroom as we were getting dressed. I found him this way on the couch and since it's so rare to see him like this, I wanted to capture the rare moment he's not moving.
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