Basement Project: The Walls Are Up!!

This past weekend we made exciting progress on the basement thanks to my dear ol', recently retired, bored with all his extra time dad. Then today, we put up the final wall!!

Just a reminder -- here's what the basement looked like last week.

Above: This is from the laundry side looking across the room. The line in paint color is where the old wall was. (Isn't that floor lovely!)

Below: This is from that corner looking toward the laundry. The door goes to the garage.

And this is from the stairs leading upstairs looking across the room. Again, door leads to the garage. The goal is to build a wall just to the left of the ladder, under that part of the ceiling that drops down.

And here comes progress!

My dad and I went to Home Depot and after my dad did a lot of this... (checking for straight boards)

We came home with 35-2x4x8s and 2-2x4x12s -- ready to frame in some walls!

First, a little demo.

Drywall down and checking this vent thing to see what is vent and what is built up wall that can come down.

There was LOTS of measuring and cutting while the rain poured outside. So glad we have a big garage next to this room so we could keep everything including ourselves dry.

Then one by one the walls went up. At this point I was not a lot of help. I wasn't needed until we had to actually set the wall up.

This tool was the coolest thing. It uses a .22 blank shell with a nail. You hit the red end with a hammer and it literally shoots the nail through the wood and into the concrete.

Watch!

YAY!!! Progress!!

So, while we are technically only adding one wall we put walls up in three spots. The two walls you see here are both concrete and can not have drywall on them (without a lot of glue and mess) and we can't add outlets or anything else to them. So, we built the walls out a little for ease of the overall remodel.

Just seeing walls makes me smile. 

So what's next?

 The basement is a mess! So cleaning is close to the top of the list. 

The floor did get scraped in a couple places, but that's OK. Nate says that's why you are supposed to do the floor last. But seriously, I could not wait on that floor any longer. I can handle a few tiny touch ups. 

Next up:

-tear out the rest of that old wall

-clean the floors

-get new outlets wired and move old outlets around and wire for light fixture

-get rid of that old intercom box

-add drywall and texture

-baseboards

-new light fixture

-new ceiling drywall

-add a door

-figure out the purpose of the room (guest room or something else) and pick out furniture

-move on to the entry/mudroom side of the room