Blogging Dan

The framing is complete*

Well, it’s taken some time – about three months – but the framing for the basement project is complete*.

The interior framing

The framing of the half-bath, closet and HVAC closet took a bit longer than I thought, and was some of the trickier work I’ve had to do so far. I wasn’t just putting up a wall parallel to a concrete wall, so I really had to think about where things needed to go. I also had four doorways to frame in, but I found those to be pretty easy. (We’ll see if the doors actually fit.)

Tricky framing

Definitely the trickiest thing I had to deal with was an inconveniently located drain pipe. It was right where the bathroom wall needed to be. I ended up constructing a short framing section that fit under the pipe and then put in a couple of blocks between the partial stud and the full stud next to it to make it sturdier. Then I had to soffit in the exchange duct for the heater. I used a borrowed miter saw (thanks, Dave!) to cut the angles. I didn’t think the nails would be long enough to secure them, so I got some 4″ screws. That didn’t work out (kept stripping the screw), so I tried the nail gun, and it worked just fine.

It feels good to have the framing done*. The part I liked least was securing the bottom plate for all the walls. Even with a hammer drill and masonry bits, that was tough going, and a heck of a work out.

Soffit

Up next: wiring for speakers, ethernet and electric. (I’m going to do the wiring, but let someone who knows what he’s doing actually connect it to the box. I got the front three in-wall speakers wired today. I’m going with a 7.1 system, so I have four more speakers plus the subwoofer to wire.

I also need to finalize the bar plans so I know where the wiring and plumbing for that will go. I’ll schedule the plumber soon to do the half-bath and wet bar.

So far, I’m really enjoying this. It’s given me quite a sense of accomplishment to see it all take shape.

* With the exception of the framing for the corner fireplace we decided to install.

If I had a hammer …

This applies even more so to a reciprocating saw. (The demolition blade did the trick. The old bottom plate is history.)

At least the taking things apart and altering of the environment. Putting things together? Not so much.

One wall goes up, another comes down

Progress continues on the framing. The final exterior wall is in. Now all I have left is several interior walls. These will include my first rough-ins for door frames, which will make it interesting.

Coming down

Before I get into that, I decided to do the little bit of demolition work that we need to do. We’re framing in the area by the stairs and incorporating it into a small portion under the patio that will remain unfinished. To make that work, I had to take down some of existing framing (don’t worry, it is not a load-supporting wall). This gave me another opportunity to put the reciprocating saw to work. It went right through the studs and the nails holding them in place. (I used a metal-cutting blade instead of a wood-cutting one.)

Open space

I cut through the top, and then was able to pull the stud off the nails attaching them to the bottom plate. I ended up with seven lengths of very nice 2×6. I think I’ll be able to repurpose those in the wet bar build.

With the studs down, I turned my attention to the bottom plate. That effort didn’t go so well. I switched to a wood-cutting blade. But at my first attempt to go through it, the blade bent. I tried again with a metal blade. Same result.

Barely a scratch

After three attempts with three different blades, you can see the damage done to the bottom plate in the photo to the left. If you look very closely, that is. I think I probably need a demolition blade, which is thicker than regular reciprocating saw blades.

Once this is done, I’ll get back to framing, which will be pretty straightforward except for the back wall of the half-bath. There’s an inconveniently located drain pipe there angling right across where the wall ought to be. I could put the wall in front of the pipe, but that leaves a pretty small margin for fitting in the toilet (about 10″ from the centerline of the toilet drain to the wall). This will require a fair amount of pondering time to figure out.

Another wall done … and a question to be answered

The longest wall ... done.

Finished the second, and longest wall today. It went far more smoothly. I’m still not getting the measurement right the first time most times. But there was much less futzing with the circular saw this time. Also, for some reason, the stud markers I carefully measured and marked off seemed to be a little off. I ended up checking each stud and making small adjustments, and still ended up off here or there. (I’m thinking some of the studs were probably warped, which threw off the measurements.)

Oh, and when we put in one of the top plates, I forgot to make sure the stud marks were facing down. Oops. I had to climb a ladder and put the marks on the side of the top plate. That probably threw things off some, too.

Anyway, this wall is a good 10 feet longer than the first, and it probably took half the time.

Next up is the shortest wall, a four-footer that corners off the long wall and then will have to meet up with the already-framed portion of the exterior wall. This and another short wall by the stairs will be the only two not dropped directly off or perpendicular to a truss. I was a little concerned about that, but I cut three blocks for the four-footer and got one screwed in without issue, so I think I can handle it. The top plate will attach to those blocks, which are even with, and perpendicular to, the truss. Everything should line up just fine.

So far, I’ve decided the wisest power tool purchase was the air compressor and nail gun set. I can’t even begin to imagine doing this with just a hammer.

After the four-foot wall’s done, I’ll have one more 15-foot wall to put up on the exterior, then about 40 feet of interior wall to frame in the bathroom, HVAC/water heater closet and an area that will remain unfinished. Then I need to start thinking wiring, both for electric and audio/video/ethernet.

Before I can get that mapped out, I need to make a decision about how best to orient the home theater. Click on the plans on the left. The home theater is the area of the basement to the left. My original thought was to have the screen for the home theater along the long wall to the left. But after getting some advice from someone who knows a lot about projectors and home theater systems, I’m reconsidering. He suggested putting the screen on the top, shorter wall.

My concern is the the narrow orientation will limit seating. We might be able to fit either a couch or a loveseat and sofa in the 12’6″ or so that will make up the width of the room with the walls put in. I would prefer not to get into dealing with risers – though I suppose that really comfortable bar stools could provide some additional seating for times when we have more than three or four folks watching a movie.

The concern with the wider orientation is that there won’t be enough depth in the room for optimum distance for the projector and to get really good surround sound speaker placement. Plus, the width of the room would put people really close to what will probably be an 80″ to 100″ screen.

I’m going back and forth. Anyone out there have any thoughts?

Update: Another thought occurred to me. If I make the bathroom narrower, I could get another 15″ of either depth or width in the home theater area. I just don’t know if I’ll have room for the sink if I make the bathroom that much smaller. It would give me about 33″ from the centerline of the toilet to the wall. Anyone know if that’s enough room for a small sink? 

Update #2: I’ve decided on the narrow orientation. I dropped the wall for the bathroom a little further out, but not as far as I originally thought. I didn’t want the space between the toilet and the sink to be too tight. Final width of the room is just more than 13 feet.

Ah, progress

The studs are going up.

I was hoping to have the first wall framed in by the end of the day today. We didn’t quite get there, but we did make genuine progress. The bottom plate was, at long last, finished. All but one of the studs has been cut to size (a couple were warped and a couple, ahem, ended up cut too short, so I’ll have to wait for the next batch of lumber to put in the final stud of this wall). And about a third of the studs were nailed into place.

There were, naturally, some frustrations. As carefully as I seemed to measure, I rarely got the cut right the first time. The process ended up going like this: I’d measure the length from the top plate to the bottom plate, then cut the stud. I’d try the stud in the measured spot, and it would be either too long or too short (by an eighth of an inch or so). I’d then try the stud in various other positions. If it fit someplace else, great. If not, I’d shave a tiny bit off with the circular saw and try again, and again. Many of the studs ended up just right – a nice solid fit that wouldn’t warp the truss above. A few were a hair short of that perfect fit. Lesson learned: Take those studs out of position before fitting others; otherwise, they might fall on you while you’re tapping the others into place.

Getting the studs properly positioned and keeping them there while nailing them into place was also challenging. Shannon helped, and it took some trial and error to figure out the best way of doing it (nail the bottom in first, then the top). The hardest were the ones that were just a tad short of a nice fit. But we managed. Lesson learned: Framing nail guns are heavy. We only got about a third of the studs nailed into place because my arms were getting rubbery.

Final lesson of the day: Best to quit early than operate dangerous power tools when you’re tired. Luckily, we didn’t learn that one the hard way.

Things are getting a little frustrating here

(Updated below) I figure it’s about time for an update on the basement project. I finally got all the estimates I needed to get the building permit and the first load of lumber was delivered a couple of weeks ago. I just got enough for the first wall, thinking that would be a learning experience that might take a little while to finish.

And how.

One of the pieces of the top plate was just slightly off kilter. But enough to cause problems when we go to hang the dry wall.

The first part went pretty well. I lined up the pressure-treated lumber for the bottom plate along the wall and then laid the pieces for the top plate right beside them. (This involved firing up the first power-tool – a circular saw borrowed from my father-in-law. So far, I have retained all my digits.) I marked the location of the studs so they would fall every 16 inches. Then I called on my wife’s assistance. With the air compressor fully charged and the nail gun loaded, I had her hold the first of the top plates up to the bottom of the trusses spanning the basement. I fired a nail into either end so she could let go, then put two nails about every 16 inches. Combined with a bead of construction adhesive, I’m confident the top plate isn’t going anywhere. We repeated the process for the other two pieces of top plate, taking care (as I recall) to line everything up just so before firing the first nail.

Well, whether it was the slightly too-short-for-the-job step ladder or my inexperience with the very large nail gun, not everything was lined up just so. I fretted over that for awhile, but set it aside to concentrate on getting the bottom plate put in. We had dropped a plumb line from the truss to mark the location for the bottom plate. I rechecked to make sure that was accurate, then glued the bottom plate, put it into place and pulled out the DeWalt hammer drill I had purchased for this job. I put on eye protection and drilled the first hole through the bottom plate and into the concrete. Drilling concrete is very loud. Once the hole was drilled (using the masonry drill bit that came with the Tapcon screws I bought at Lowe’s), I switched in a Philip’s head screw bit and set the first screw. Or tried to. With about a quarter-inch still out of the wood, the screw refused to budge any further.

I set that aside and drilled a second hole at the other end, wanting to get the bottom plate down so the construction adhesive would set. I drilled that hole without incident, then put in another screw. This one stopped more like a half-inch out. This was not going well. The bit was the right size. It had come with the screws, after all. I tried taking the screws out and drilling the holes even deeper. That’s when the drill decided it didn’t like being in hammer mode. The torque collar kept slipping from the hammer setting to the drill setting. A call to Amazon got a replacement drill on the way, but delayed any further work for a couple of days. In the meantime, I went back to Lowe’s and bought a longer drill bit.

A little reciprocating-saw action took care of the problem.

While I was waiting for the new drill, I talked to a DIY friend about the top plate. He recommended yet another purchase – a reciprocating saw. Thinking I would need that to take down some of the existing framing in the basement that we don’t want, I went ahead and ordered it. (Amazon is loving me these days.) It did the trick.

The new drill came and I redrilled the first hole using the longer bit. The screw went in almost all the way. Almost. I redrilled the second hole, just as deep, but the screw was still sticking out about a quarter of an inch. I finally Googled it, and it turns out the Tapcon screws do this a lot. There are a lot of theories – concrete dust falling into the bottom of the hole seems to be the likeliest culprit, though shooting compressed air into the hole didn’t make any difference. The best solution presented online appears to be going with a slightly wider drill bit – 7/32 instead of 3/16. So I went on a search for a 7/32 masonry bit. I couldn’t find one that was long enough that would fit my drill. I tried a 1/4-inch bit, but that was too wide. The screw went in all the way, but wouldn’t tighten. That might be ok for this application (as opposed to hanging something off a concrete wall, for instance), but I want to do things right. So, I wait for another order from Amazon to arrive.

If that solves the problem, I’ll get the bottom plate installed, put in the studs, and then order some more lumber.

So far, there’s been a lot of work and a lot of frustration with very little to show for it – other than hefty bills from Amazon and Lowe’s. But I have a feeling that real progress is just around the corner. Stay tuned.

(Update: The drill bit arrived late this afternoon, and it did the trick! The screws are set flush and tight. The rest of the bottom plate for the first wall will soon be in, with studs soon to follow. Progress, at last.)