I managed to get the framing up for the half-walls that go around 2 walls of the basement. One will hold the bookshelves, and the other is more decorative, but does afford me space to run the electrical wires.
(This is an animated picture - Click to see a “time lapse”)
Here’s a couple regular pictures…
Aren’t gift cards wonderful? I got a $50 Home Depot card from my sister for my birthday this year so I decided to put it to good use and buy some drywall with it. I think I ended up spending about $13 for 15 sheets of drywall after the gift card, so I was a happy panda.
I figured that even as dumb as I can be sometimes, I could at least wrangle some 5/8″ drywall onto the ceiling of our 6 foot by 6 foot walk-in closet. Boy, I couldn’t have been much more wrong.
I take some measurements ant go up to the garage to cut one of the monster 12′ sections to length and carry it down to the basement. I have to make a 45 degree cut out of one of the corners, and then I measure for the recessed light, put the template onto the drywall and cut out the 6″ circle. Easy as pie! I muscle the sheet up to the ceiling and prop it there with a contrived drywall Tee that I made out of some 2×4’s. Here comes the first chuckle. I measured the 6″ hole for the can-light from the wrong side of the drywall. Not that big of a deal, I put the cutout back in and attach it and remeasure and re-cut the whole. I sit at 0-1 for can-light cutouts. (I’m actually 0-2 but that’s a detail for a different post)
So I Conan the sheet back up to the ceiling with the new and improved hole in it and it lines up! Score. I proceed to start running screws in to hold it in place. I think I have about 6 screws in when one of them goes in a little funny. I don’t think much of it until water starts dripping down. That’s the second chuckle. I’m not even mad and a little amused at this point for being so dumb. I could SEE the pipe a couple inches from where I buried the screw. Duh. Oh well, take the drywall back down, close some valves and come up with a game-plan. At least it was a pipe for our radiant heat, and we haven’t needed the heat yet, so no biggie.
I’ve never sweated copper pipe before, so I’m understandably a little nervous. The helpful, albeit slightly cross-eyed gentleman at Menards shows me this epoxy/fiberglass product that he thinks might do the trick for me. I figured, “What the heck is the worst that can happen? I need to cut the pipe if I want to sweat fittings onto it, and if this epoxy jazz doesn’t work, I need to cut the pipe anyway.” $8 and I’m headed home. Turns out that epoxy stuff is no treat to deal with. Shoulda figured when I opened it and it came with latex gloves. I follow the directions, make a mess, do some swearing and finally get the stuff on and wrapped. With a dubious and slightly dirty look after it’s cured, I pressurize the line again only to see water slowly dripping from there. I actually would have been MORE shocked had it actually worked.
The next day at lunch I run over to Ace Hardware and pick up some fittings, some solder and flux and have them cut me a 12″ section of 1″ pipe. Rounding to the nearest $20, I spent about $20. $5 for 12″ of pipe at Ace. (I will address that shortly) I get back to work and for grins I sweat one of the fittings onto the pipe. SUCCESS!! I’m so proud of myself. Later that evening after Elle goes to bed I proceed to spend the next FOUR hours trying to make 3 more sweats. The first one went pretty good and I had confidence in it. The next 2 just didn’t want to take at all. I had trouble getting all of the water out of the pipe, and anyone who has sweated pipe knows that you just can’t get the pipe hot enough to melt the solder if there is water in it. I spent what seemed an eternity with my air compressor and some old hose and opening and closing bleeder valves trying to get all the water out of the pipe. I FINALLY got the third joint sweated and spent a lot of time of the 4th joint and just couldn’t get it for the life of me. After forever working on it I thought I finally had it licked. (Well, not really, those piped get hot, you wouldn’t want to lick it) I pressurized it again and water was slowly dripping from the 4th joint. Closed all the valves again and went to bed.
Wasn’t this story about drywall?
The next day I run to Menards and pick up a FIVE FOOT section of 1″ pipe for $13. Hmm let’s see. 5 feet at Menards for $13, or 1 foot at Ace for $5? My math isn’t that good, so I’m not sure which is the better deal. Do you know what else I discovered? That they actually sell fitting WITH solder in them already, so all you have to do is heat them up. Score! I bought a few extras this time. 
Back home I cut out the failed section, cut the new pipe, and wrangle it all together. When is the last time you used the term “wrangle” twice in the same day? Anywho, I got everything sweated together, let it cool and flooded the line again. This time with NO drips! Go Eric! It’s your birthday! Go Eric!
THIS time I make some marks on the drywall that are akin to someone standing next to you saying, “Don’t put screws here dumbass!“ I muscle the drywall back up and run about 20 screws into it to hold it in place. I’m on the last row of screws farthest from my pipe repair and I ram a screw into the sheet rock in what just “feels” like the perfect distance from the edge of the sheet. Drip, drip, drip. Yup, it takes a truly special idiot to do that AGAIN. I would resemble such a special idiot. Instead of taking the whole sheet down again though, I just cut a section out and repaired the pipe right there. It actually went really fast and really easy. Good thing I bought those extra fittings, hey? So I think I ended up spending about $50-$60 on parts and about 6 hours of time because I’m an idiot.
I’m just too long-winded for my own good, hey?
Alrighty then. Once the ceiling was up, rocking the walls was pretty fast and easy. I had spent a LONG time making sure that I had all of my electrical, network, antenna, audio wires, etc. run. No amusing stories doing the walls, but some pictures for you!
Yet again one of those projects that I had no intention of doing reared it’s ugly head from it’s deep, dark den at the prodding of my wife. We were at Menards (admit it, the jingle just went through your head) and they had area rugs on sale. Elle’s room is about 9.5 feet x 12 feet and we picked up a generic beige area rug that was like 7 x 9.5 or something like that for $28. From pulling back some of the carpet by the closet, we knew that under the carpet was some wood veneer type tiles laid down and they looked acceptable, especially with a large area rug covering most of the main area of the room. Worst case we would maybe throw down a coat or two of poly and spruce it up. (Insert obligatory Zar product plug here (Hi Dad!))
Here was the plan:
Step 1: With much violence, rip the nasty carpet out of Elle’s room.
Step 2: Remove nail strips.
Step 3: Unroll area rug
Step 4: Drink beer and pat self on back for job well done.
In actuality, here’s more or less what REALLY happened… (sad panda)
Step 1: Move furniture with the help of my wife away from one end of the room.
Step 2: Smash toe, smash shin, swear at wife, kick dog out of way, escort toddler out of room, escort toddler out of room again, fantasize about beer, give wife dirty look because I already know where this project is headed…
Step 3: Finally get access to a large enough area of carpet that I can start ripping it up. Realize that I had to remove trim between hallway and bedroom. Go downstairs, find power screwdriver (because the truly lazy will spend 24 minutes looking for a cordless screwdriver and another 7 minutes looking for a Phillips bit instead of using a manual screwdriver) and take trim piece up.
Step 4: Tear a large chunk of carpet up and notice some white paint on the tile. Think to oneself, “Oh, that’s not too bad” and proceed to rip more carpet up.
Step 5: Grumble at wife some more as we have to move more furniture out of the way. Get more carpet up and the stunning realization hits that some previous owner had painted the room knowing that they were going to put carpet in and didn’t bother with drop-cloths. I mean really, who the F does that?
Step 6: While fantasizing about liquor now instead of beer, try to figure out how to proceed now.
Step 7: Listen and watch wife start dying from allergies from the dust that is in the carpet and carpet pad. Start sending off text messages and making phone calls to see if anyone has any Benedryl around.
Step 8: Spend 38 more minutes moving furniture, rolling carpet, swearing, smashing toes and listening to the wife complain that she can’t breathe and her eyes itch.
Step 9: FINALLY get the carpet into who most blind people would consider a roll and swear like a drunken sailor as I drag it outside and throw it onto the lawn with the padding.
Step 10: Listen to the wife complain more about allergies and then again as she tells me to go back to Menards and get something to put onto the floor because we just can’t leave it like it is. I think the adjective that she stressed was “Cheap.” Seriously, we were just at Menards like an HOUR before this point. Bah, gas is cheap nowadays, like $2.65 a gallon, what’s another 20 mile trip between friends. I think when I started driving gas was $.68 cents per gallon. (Insert “Jeez Eric, you’re old” jokes here)
Step 11: Back in the vehicle and back to Menards. Spend 20 minutes looking for the cheapest solution that I can live with. Have a couple ideas and call the wife, but she never answers her cell phone. (I mean c’mon, why have a cell phone if you never answer it (Bill collectors, please pay no attention to that rant, it’s not that I don’t WANT to talk to you, I just have no money, oh yeah, and I don’t really want to talk to you))
Step 12: Make a decision to go with faux-wood vinyl floor tiles similar to what is in the room already. $94 later, back in the car and head home
Step 13: Get home to wife whos eyes are swollen to about halfway shut. I then try to explain her utter amazement that it’s not going to be anywhere near a quick project, because I have to take the baseboard trim off the walls, etc. because I didn’t want to half-ass it. Wife isn’t happy. I’m not happy.
Step 14: Lay a half dozen of the new tiles out on the kitchen floor so the wife can look at them for 2.3 seconds and say, “I don’t like them, we need to do something else”
Step 15: Stop working on that project and get the girls to bed. Go to bed myself.
Step 16: Wake up, take Elle’s crib COMPLETELY apart because it’s about a 1/2″ too wide to fit through our door. I wanted to get her crib into our room because I figured I’d be working in her room most of the day.
Step 17: After dropping Mara off at her mom’s house, stop at Menards (again) and return the $94 worth of fugly tiles and the $28 carpet. Spend 25 minutes trying to find the cheapest solution that I could actually live with and decide to get some dark brown Walnut laminate flooring. 7 boxes at $23 a box I think it was.
Step 18: Pack up, drive home, and haul the 7 boxes into Elle’s room. Proceed to move all of the furniture to one side of the room. Use the demo-bar to remove the trim, take the door off, ponder if it’s too early for a Jager-bomb…
Step 19: This is probably the fastest part of the saga. Laying laminate is really fast and easy. Once I started laying it, it probably didn’t take more than 90 minutes to lay 120 square feet of it, and that included all of the vacuuming up of sawdust and moving of furniture around to make room.
Step 20: Finish the floor, put the trim back up and FINALLY:
Step 21: Pat self on back for a job well done.
Anyway, enough of my babbling: On to the pictures!
The first group are of the drop-cloth, er, I mean floor before…
Here’s some in-process pictures…
And here’s some of the completed or almost completed pictures…
Here’s a couple shots of the shelves set into the framing that I got installed the other day. Lots of visualization in my head to get them all in right, but I think I managed it. Well, I HOPE I managed it, because that’s the way they’re staying!
I had cut all the wood to length from just regular white OSB shelves from Menards last fall and never had the ambition to get the slots cut with the router to assemble the shelves. One I finally got around to it, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought. I think it took me the better part of a Saturday to make lots of noise and get everything cut and assembled.
On to the pics!
I love sales at Menards. A double pack of light fixtures for $20 in the style that I actually like? Sign me up!
Not much snappy rhetoric with this post, but a few before, during and after pictures!
Sorry I’ve been away for so long. You’ve all no doubt missed my witty posts and beautiful photographs. It’s not like you’re missing much, as I haven’t DONE much around the house lately. With summer here (and torrential rains and floods) I’ve kinda put off a lot of the projects.
We did manage to get outside and do a little work on that front flower bed that we “remodeled” a few months back. I took a mess of pictures, but I’ll have to post those later as I haven’t taken them off of the camera yet.
Basically what we noticed was, that left to their own accord, weeds will take over everything. I knew something had to be done, but this was the first weekend I had some time to devote to it. I grabbed five 5-gallon buckets and threw them into the Kia along with some gloves and a shovel. I went to the Oconomowoc Landscape & Garden Center (or whatever the hell it’s called) on Hwy 67 & K to get some river rocks/gravel. I spoke with the young man behind the counter and he explained to me that I had to “weigh-in” and then load up and then weigh the vehicle again to calculate how much gravel I bought. I’m sure he loved seeing the POS Kia ride up onto the scale.
I weighed in and drove around to the piles of gravel and pulled out the shovel and filled the 5 pails up with rocks. They weighed quite a bit more than I expected, and I’m sure the Kia just groaned under the additional weight. I went and weighed back in and it came to .18 tons of rocks. For those of you who don’t have Excel open, that’s 360 pounds of gravel, so roughly 75 pounds per bucket. This is all provided you can trust their scale.
So I drive the new dirty rocks home and Danya came over and Danielle, Danya and I got to the task of removing some of the dirt so we could replace it with gravel. I pulled about 1 wheelbarrow load of dirt out of the flower bed and then we put down a layer of weed-barrier. I dumped 3 of the buckets of dirt onto the weed-barrier and we all immediately knew that 360 pounds of rocks was going to be FAR too short. Disgusted that I had to do MORE work and spend another $17 for gravel, I trudged over to the neighbors to see if I could borrow his truck. He said, “Can you drive stick?” and I replied, “Yes” and then it was your typical 5 minute conversation that every guy is familiar with, the whole “These are the quirks of my vehicle” list that he ran through.
I jumped into his truck (a Chevy Silverado 6-speed diesel) and it took me about 42 seconds before I realized that I was missing something in my life. A TRUCK! Now I want a truck. Anyway, back to the story. I go through the whole rigmarole with the scale, the buckets, the shovel, the scale, the debit card, missing 3rd gear, etc and come back with another .18 tons of gravel. Don’t open Excel now, it’s the same 360 pounds that .18 tons was earlier in my riveting tale.
When we got that all dumped into the flower bed it was really starting to come around. I put some larger rocks that were in the back yard in there and I think it looks really sharp.
On another note, have you ever been in a rain forest, say in Central America? Headed there would probably be a nice relief from the mosquitoes in our yard, they’re that bad. I had to go water our bucket tomato plants on Saturday and I literally had to run down there, DUMP the watering can onto the top of them and then RUN back to the safety of the house. I think I actually noticed some of the mosquitoes had radios on so they could coordinate their attacks on me and let the others know which was I was headed. To make matters worse, I had to mow the lawn too. 
So on advice from the neighbor I picked up some of that Cutter bug spray that you put on your hose and spray all over the yard and flower beds. From what I could tell, it seems to really work, but I guess we’ll see how long it lasts. We were actually able to sit on the patio for a while last evening without getting bitten up.
As I mentioned earlier, this will most likely be the most complicated part of the build. I’m doing this all from an idea in my head and there is very little that I’ve written down on paper. While I sometimes shock myself at my spacial analysis skills, other times it gets me in trouble because I’ll be halfway through something before I realize that it won’t work.
I spent several hours this weekend working on the wall that will run through the center of the basement and will have recessed cavities for the TV, the speakers, the electronic components and various nooks for nicknacks. (Read: Elephants)
This is the center area below where the TV is going to go. There’s 6 “cubbies” that I’m trying to build into the wall. They will each be around 13″ deep and the top-center one will be where the center-channel speaker will go. The next picture is of one of the similar “cubbies” on the left side of the the TV that will hold the left front speaker for the surround sound. There will be a couple open ones underneath for stuff to go in.
Here’s a shot of the front of the area where the stereo and PS3 and whatnot will go. I’m even toying with the idea of recycling one of my old computers to turn it into an HTPC for watching movies and playing games on. Warcraft on a 47″ TV?!?! Sign me up!!
Here’s a couple shots of the “back” of that area. This part gave me fits to design on the fly, but I think I managed to pull it off, at least I think so. I’ve got an issue with doorknob interference at the moment, but I have several workarounds planned in my head. What I’m envisioning right now is that I’ll be able to open the door from the back room and access all of the wires and cables for the components in the cabinet really easily. When I’m done I close the door and everything is tucked away nice and neat! We’ll see if it actually turns out that way though, but I’m being optimistic at this stage.
The installers came yesterday afternoon and set up the swing. I think it took them about 2 hours to get it dragged down, set up, packed up and gone.
Unbeknownst to them I took pictures of the install from Elle’s bedroom window. I didn’t have them sign a release waiver, so hopefully I won’t get sued.
The set seems really nice and really sturdy. It’s pretty small though, at least the little play “hut” is. At the condo it was really easy for me to get up and play with Mara in the hut, and Jada could also jump up there relatively easy. This one is much higher, and I have to squeeze my lard-ass into the little door.
I was swinging on one of the swings and it seems to be able to hold my fatness without me worrying about it giving way, so that’s good.