Frame job

I'm not sure how interesting people will find this post, but I won't mind if you just skip it. There are no people in these pictures, just lots of basement and lots of wood. I will give a good chunk of details, mostly for my own record keeping so I can remember what it looked like before I put the drywall up. I'll probably consult this post whenever I need to find a stud.

Anyway, ever since we bought this house I wanted to finish the basement. Now, I have zero construction experience, just small, odd jobs here and there and nothing using major power tools that can maim/kill you if mishandled. When I was in college, my mom had me redo a couple of the bathrooms in the house and I learned quite a lot by doing that. I look back at my work, and boy did it suck. I've also learned that most anybody can do this if they take their time and have the right tools.

I'm also not sure how to display this in any way that makes sense, but I'll do my best.

The Stairs


Looking down, pre-construction. You will notice the vapor barrier I've installed along the wall, and the floor plates which I put into the cement using a Ramset, which is a powder charged nailgun, using .22 bullets. It was pretty fun, and loud.
Anyway, we decided to take out the left wall along the stairs to open it up a little more. That was pretty fun, as I took the circular saw and just cut along the joist. So much dust kicked up from the drywall that it caused all of the smoke detectors to go off.

Here's a view of the wall that we took out. Don't use the couch as a point of reference, as I moved it a few times.


And, voila! The wall is gone. I think it really opened up the downstairs.
You can also notice all of the framing I put up next to the stairs. With the huge discharge pipe in the middle, it made it a tremendous pain. That took me a few days.
Here's a closeup of the stairs.

Here's the door frame leading to what will be the laundry/storage room.

Here is what will be the hallway leading from the stairs to the family room. You'll notice this is before I took out the wall.
This is actually looking from the bottom of the stairs down the hall, through the door and into the family room. The door in the picture leads to the outside, a steel exterior door. Burly Steve helped me put that in a few months ago.


Here's the family room, looking left from the outside door. This is the best pic I got pre-construction.
Starting framing

Finishing my first wall, framing around the window.

Second wall
I had to build a soffit (the box in the corner) to hide the various pipes. We'll have to put in a drop ceiling because of all the pipes/ducts.Looking through the bathroom door into the room.

The south wallWhere the couch sits is where the bathroom will be, but that won't be in this project.



I decided to frame underneath the stairs so that the little ones can play under there without boppin their heads on the steps.


My original goal was to have the basement framed out by the end of Spring 2010. However, I got the bug and enjoyed it so much that I just went down there every chance I could.

Next step: Wiring the basement!