The lights are on.

Saturday, I felt like an idiot. As I write this Sunday, I’m feeling relatively brilliant. I got the rest of the outlets put in, then prepared to switch power over to the new lights.

The current incandescent lighting is controlled by two three-way switches, one out at the bottom of the stairs and one by the door to the outside. The new lights would be on two circuits, already wired with the appropriate wires put in the outlet boxes before the last electrical inspection. The office lighting will be controlled from two linked Insteon dimmers, one by the door to the outside, replacing the current switch and one by the hallway near the half bath. The home theater lighting will be controlled by a set of dimmers connected to two three-way light switches, one in the hallway and one at the bottom of the stairs. That way, the three banks of light can be adjusted independently, but all turned off with one switch.

Up till now, I’ve been only working with the wiring I put in. And I mostly knew what I had done. Mostly. When I shut off the fuse and pulled the first switch plate off to make the transition, though, I was baffled. It wasn’t at all what I expected.

This was the two-gang box that contained the three-way switch for the old, incandescent basement lights and the light outside the basement door. I expected to find one wire coming in from the junction box, split to the two switches with a wire going out to the outdoor light and another going to the incandescents — or, perhaps, a three-wire cable going to the other three-way switch. Instead, I found what appeared to be two hot wires coming into the box. There was one wire going out from the inside light switch and one from the outside light switch, but line going to that switch was from a pigtail with three additional wires going out. I didn’t know where those went. There was no red wire, indicating a three-wire cable — which is the only method I’m familiar with for wiring a three-way switch.

I contemplated that for a long time. Called one DIY mentor and got his answering machine. Called another and got a hold of him, but didn’t get anything helpful out of him other than a suggestion to “Google it.” Yeah. Thanks, buddy. Finally, I decided I was overthinking it. I didn’t know how or why there were two hot wires, both seemingly on the one fuse, going into the box. But I knew I wanted to leave the outdoor light switch like it was and replace the other switch with an Insteon dimmer that would be paired with another in a switch in the hallway. So I just disconnected the old switch and hooked up the Insteon. At first, nothing happened. Then I tried connecting the pigtailed neutral wires from the Insteon switch with the other group of pigtailed neutrals for the other cables.

And there was light. And it was good.

So I went on to the switch at the bottom of the stairs. I expected this one to be more complicated, because I knew the cable that powered the exhaust fan for the water heater came out of there, along with the three-way switch for the stairway light. When I pulled out the switches, I realized the switch was an older three-way switch. Instead of two brass screws and a ground, this had two brass screws, a black screw and a ground. But there was no red wire. I realized whoever did the original wiring had used a white wire for the traveler between the two switches. This is when I should have realized what would happen next, but I didn’t. I hooked up the old switch to the new wiring and flipped the fuse. The home theater lights came on, after about a three-second delay. I guess it takes that long for the Insteons to activate. That’s kind of a bummer, but not a deal-breaker. Then I flipped the original fuse for the office lights. Nothing.

Hmmm. It took me a minute, but then I realized that what I had hooked the dimmer up to wasn’t a hot line from the panel, it was the common line from the three-way switch by the stairs. When I disconnected that, it lost power. So I connected it to the black and neutral pigtails coming off the switch to the outdoor light, flipped the fuse back, and felt very proud of myself when the lights came on. It took a couple of tries to pair the Insteon dimmers properly, but now they both control lights.

I have a couple more wiring-related chores: There’s an existing outlet that’s still powered off the original circuit. I need to disconnect that and hook it in to the new outlet circuit for the home theater, and I need to put in the dimmers for the bar-area lighting. But I won’t be installing that lighting until the ceiling’s in, so there’s no rush.

I feel good about figuring out the old wiring, though it probably would have been obvious from the start if I’d had any experience with people using the white wire as a traveler for three-way switches. Still, compared to Saturday, I’m feeling like Einstein.

I’ll be taking a break next weekend, then it’s on to the ceiling. I’ll be taking down the old lighting, installing ceiling insulation and putting up furring strips. Then we’ve got 800 or so ceiling tiles to paint. Let the good times roll!

Let’s start with the receiver and the speakers. When last we talked, I was looking forward to testing out the receiver with all five installed speakers. But there was a problem. (The problem actually showed up in the initial test, but I was hoping it would be easily resolved. It was, but it took some doing to figure out what needed to be resolved.) Here was the thing: The system sounded fantastic. Crystal clear. Awesome. Powerful. For about five minutes. Then the amp would go into protect mode and shut down.

At first, I thought it was because of the heavy gauge speaker wire I was using. The receiver, for some reason, only uses banana clip inputs for two speakers, the front left and right speakers. The rest have the cheap spring clip connectors. The 12-gauge wire was too thick to fit in the opening well, and bunched up. I figured stray strands from adjacent clips were touching and causing a short. So I ordered a set of pin plugs, which are like banana plugs, but thinner, and designed to fit in the spring clips. They arrived, and I connected them to the cables and plugged them in. Everything was golden for about 10 minutes, then the same thing happened.

I looked at the troubleshooting section of the manual for the receiver. It said to try the center speaker alone, and if that worked ok, add the other speakers one at a time until the problem was isolated. If it wasn’t ok, the unit probably needed servicing.

I tried it with just the center speaker. Had the same result. The pin plugs, though, didn’t seem all that stable (and, oddly, the outside of the plugs is conductive; Amazon reviews warned they needed to be wrapped in electric tape or they might cause shorts. So I clipped off a couple sections of the pin to see if they’d set better and wrapped them all up. Same result. I even tried just the center speaker with a section of the old 18-gauge speaker wire I’d taken out. Same thing. So I got on a Sony online tech support chat. Not helpful. They pointed me to the troubleshooting section I’d already worked through. Finally, they asked when it had last worked as expected. I said, “Never.” They suggested sending it in for servicing.

I had bought the receiver back in December from Amazon. It was past the 30-day return window, but Amazon is rightly renowned for its customer service, so I started an online chat there and explained the situation. They lived up to expectations and shipped out a new unit, overnight. When it arrived, I plugged it in and hooked up the speakers, Blu-ray and projector. About 15 minutes in, it cut out, just like the old one. (Sorry, Amazon.)

But this made me realize that the troubleshooting suggestions for the receiver seemed predicated on the center speaker not having an issue. And, clearly, mine did. So I took it out of the wall and looked it over. Everything looked fine. I had a spare speaker since I had ordered a set of six and only needed five (three front and two sides). I compared it to the spare (I would have just put in the spare, but that would have meant painting it, and I’m lazy). They looked the same. But then I checked the connections a little closer. The solder seemed solid to the tweeter. The mid-range connection wasn’t visible. The woofer was connected with two pins, which looked fine, but when I looked closer, the red wire looked just a tiny bit off. I took it off and reseated it. It seemed more solid, but it was such a small thing, I wondered if it would matter.

I put it back in the wall, put on a movie and waited. I went back upstairs and worked, waiting to hear the audio from the movie (the 2009 Star Trek — lots of explosions) cut out. It didn’t. A half-hour in, I started to breathe easier. An hour in, I figured that must have been it.

And, apparently, I was right. (Again, really sorry about that, Amazon.)

So, about the five-speaker test: Awesome. I turned the receiver up to 39 and felt almost like I was in a movie theater. Crystal clear dialogue. Loud explosions. That was about as loud as I thought I’d need to go in most cases. I figured the receiver probably went to 50, like my old system upstairs. But what if I was wrong? I paused the movie and hit the volume up button. 40. 45. 50. 55. 60. 65. 75. 80. It goes to 100, people. I doubt I’ll ever take it much past 50, but, wow. (Sorry, neighbors.)

Ok, so why am I an idiot? I put in the switches, outlets and light fixture in the bathroom today. The light fixture was a complete pain. I must be really awful at mounting the outlet box for light fixtures. Once more, it was set further back from the wall board than really worked. I tried a few workarounds that didn’t work (and almost, swear to God, used a wooden shim to hold it in place permanently until my wife said, “Um, would that be a fire hazard?”). I did a Google search and found that there’s a product actually designed for this situation, a spacer that goes around the screw between the mounting bracket and the outlet box. I went and bought a package and got the bracket out flush with the wall. But fixture didn’t want to go on right, and the screw that locked the fixture to the bracket wouldn’t go in. The holes didn’t line up. Lots of expletives later, I had about given up when a friend brought his son over to play with mine. He was checking out the basement progress, and I showed him the fixture. Between the two of us, we got it secured, bending the bracket in a couple of places to line everything up.

Then, I installed the outlet for the projector, which I remembered I had wired off the bathroom circuit.

I powered up the circuit. Everything worked. The light worked. Both outlets had power. The fan worked. Then I went to the projector outlet. Dead. Another expletive or two. I checked everything I could think of, but I figured the splice at the light fixture must have worked loose somehow. Which meant I’d need to unmount it. Sigh.

So, I did. I unscrewed the screw that had been so hard to get in. I gently pulled the fixture off the mounting bracket and let it hang against the wall. Then I tried to get to the splice that should have carried the power to the projector outlet. I had to pull out a lot of other wires that had been tucked in there. In doing so, I pulled the negative wire to the fixture pulled loose from the pigtail. Then, before I could react, the other four wires pulled loose from their pigtails and the lamp crashed to the ground, the glass shades shattering.

That earned one huge expletive that I’m hoping my son and his friend were too busy to notice.

I decided, despite my mounting frustration level, to at least check the splice and see if I could figure out the problem. There wasn’t one. It was fine. Luckily, the wall behind the bathroom is unfinished. I figured maybe the cable going from the bathroom to the projector outlet had a short. I realized that my handy circuit detector could read current even through the insulation of a cable. So I re-energized the circuit to see if the cable was energized coming out of the outlet box. Oddly, it was. Then I checked to see if it was energized going into the box. It wasn’t, but when I accidentally brushed a nearby cable with the circuit detector, it lit up. It was the cable that was going to eventually power an outlet at the wet bar. It shouldn’t have been live.

That’s when I realized I’m an idiot. I had misremembered my circuit plan. The cable from the bathroom was going to the wet bar outlet, NOT the projector outlet. The projector outlet was the first outlet in a series of outlets in the home theater room. Once I got those hooked up and energized the proper circuit, the projector outlet worked just fine.

Which means I didn’t have to take the bathroom light fixture down. Which means I could have avoided breaking it.

If only I weren’t an idiot.

The first coat of green, freshly applied. It dried very nicely.

The camera just can’t capture it.

My wife and I spent a couple of nights last week painting in the basement. Thankfully, the going was much easier on top of the primer than it had been on naked wall board. The first night, we got the home theater room painted. The color turned out awesome. Though mocked by one friend when he saw the sample as “ping pong-table green,” it came out with a deep, dark richness that’s exactly what I wanted in the room.

The second night, I put on a second coat of the dark green, then helped Shannon finish the light green for the office. Did I say light green? I meant BRIGHT green. The image to the right is the color, but the camera doesn’t begin to capture the experience of being in the room and surrounded by this blindingly bright green. It doesn’t even come close. The color in the photo is actually more subdued than what we were aiming for, while the color in reality is in way more of a party mood than we counted on. We let it sit for a couple of days to see if it would mellow out when it dried, and we’re waiting to see what it looks like under the LED lighting as opposed to the incandescent glare of the current lights (something I hope we’ll be able to do this weekend; more on that later). But right now, we both see the need to do something about this. We may take the leftover paint back to the store and have them add more white to see if that can tone down the second coat. Or maybe we’ll find another color altogether and paint over it.

Then again, maybe we’ll just rent the space out as a green screen studio for local film productions. It would totally work.

Painting the grills.

The right surround speaker, without the grill.

This weekend, I painted the speaker trim and grills. I’d wrestled with how to do it. Online, some people swore spray painting was the only way to go. But I don’t have a spray painter, and it seemed like you had to get the dilution and spray levels just right to achieve good results. So I took other advice, and got a cheap 4″ foam roller. For the grills, I got just a little bit of paint on and then rolled most of it off onto a newspaper. It worked pretty well, though, as warned, it took numerous coats. The trim was a little easier, but still took a few coats, and still isn’t quite perfect. For the three speakers behind the screen, that won’t matter, but the two side speakers should look as good as possible.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave…

Then I moved onto installing switches, dimmers and outlets while Shannon painted the half bath. The most complicated was the triple-gang box that will house three dimmers for the home theater. I’m using Insteon dimmer switches that, if all goes right, will allow me to program settings that can be activated with a universal remote so that when I press play on the Blu-Ray, for instance, the lights will all dim to preset levels. I also wanted to be able to turn out all the lights in the theater with one switch. So the three dimmers will be powered off the three-way switch at the bottom of the stairs and another around the corner heading into the office.

So, I had three dimmers, cables out to three sets of lights and the cable in from the three-way switch at the bottom of the stairs. To get everything (hopefully) to work properly, I needed to pigtail the incoming black line to the black wires from the dimmers, then connect the red load lines from each dimmer to the respective black wires going out to each set of lights. Then came the tough part: I had to pigtail ALL the white neutral lines (which is what Insteon switches use to communicate with each other) together. One in, three out and three from the dimmers. Seven wires in one pigtail. I didn’t have a wiring nut rated for seven 14-gauge wires. (I’m not even sure one exists.) So I ended up pigtailing three in one, and four in the other, with a splice between them. You can see the photo of the resulting mess. To be honest, I’m not sure all the wires will fit in the box. Once I energize the circuit and make sure the configuration works, I’ll try to fit them. If I can’t, I may have to shorten some of the wires and redo the pigtails.

It looks lit up, but that’s just from the flash.

Now we just need the screen … and a ceiling, and a floor…

The original LEDs I ordered from eBay didn’t arrive. Apparently, there was a recall of the bulbs, and the seller got caught short. He gave me a prompt refund* and I found another seller who shipped out Philips EnduraLED 17 watt PAR38 bulbs for less than $20 each. Those have been screwed into the recessed lights. Then I hooked up the sconces that will go on either side of the projection screen. I think they’ll look good. Installing them was harder than it should have been, though, because both outlet boxes ended up crooked, and one side was further away from the wall board. I bought longer screws, but still had trouble getting the mounting bracket in an appropriate position so the mounting pin extended far enough out to secure the plate of the light fixture. Finally, I had to resort to inserting a wooden shim behind the bracket to hold it in position. When I got the plate over the pin, I slipped the shim out and was able to screw the cap on. It took some trial and error, repeating that process, before I got the mounting pin screwed in to the appropriate length to get a nice tight grip against the wall.

I had the same problem with the second sconce, and attempted a similar solution, but it just wasn’t working quite as well. Then I noticed that, in addition to the slot I had put the screws threw in the other bracket, there were a couple of holes on the bracket. One lined up just right with the hole on the outlet box. So, I put the screw threw there, then, holding it tight against the wall, screwed it in to the outlet box. That resulted in a much sturdier mount. (And a silent “D’oh!” aimed at myself.)

Installing outlets also seemed much harder and more frustrating than it needed to be. The wiring is simple enough: The black wires go on the brass screws; the white wires go on the silver screws and the ground wire goes on the green screw. But actually getting the wires onto the screws was tougher than I thought. You have to bend them into just the right C shape, then hook them around and pull them tight so you can tighten the screw. It sounds easy, and sometimes it was. But getting the last black wire on the first outlet took a good 10 minutes and nearly exhausted my arsenal of expletives. I got better as I went. When the first circuit was all hooked up, I flicked the switch and used a tester on the outlets. They all worked!

I think one of the stories I’ve told on myself is that I misunderstood the code and overdid the number of outlets. I thought the code called for spacing outlets six feet apart. Well, that didn’t work, because the frames you hang the outlet boxes on don’t fall six feet. So I fudged a little and spaced them closer to 6 1/2-feet to 7 1/2-feet, except in the office, where — knowing there’d be a lot of computer and music equipment, I erred on putting them closer together. But it turns out that that what the code actually says is that no place along a wall should be more than six feet from an outlet. So, technically, the outlets can be spaced up to 12 feet apart. I discovered that after I hung the boxes, but decided to keep things the way they were, because no one ever complained about having too many outlets in a room. Yesterday, I was seriously questioning that decision.

In any case, once the outlets are all in, I’ll switch over from the current incandescent lights to the LEDs, and we’ll see just how horrible that bright green will actually be.

* Oh, and if you’re curious, the lamp arrived for the projector. I installed it, and the projector powered up just fine. After I installed the front speakers, I did a quick test with the Blu-Ray player hooked up to the amp and the projector sitting on the table about three feet from the wall. The picture was small with the projector that close, but the picture is fantastic and the sound, even with just three speakers hooked up, was tremendous. Once the outlet is installed to power the projector, I want to try a test with the projector mounted to make sure the HDMI run between the wall and the ceiling works. I’ll hook up five of the seven speakers then, and give it a good test run. I’ve got very high hopes based on the first test.

I spent a good part of Saturday attempting to get the drywall dust under control. It coated everything. I’d covered furniture, tools and miscellany with plastic, and put up some plastic sheeting over the doorway to the unfinished storage area. The stuff directly under the sheeting was fine. The stuff in the storage area will need a LOT of dusting. I tried to mop up the floors, but when they dried I realized I’d mostly just spread the dust around.

The color choices for the home theater (left) and the home office (right).

Then it was time to prime. Home Depot had a great sale: $44 for 5 gallons of Kilz new drywall primer. It was supposed to cover up to 2,000 square feet, but new drywall is thirsty. I got both big rooms and the hallway primed, but the bathroom is still moisture-resistant drywall green. Which, oddly enough, is pretty close to the color we settled on for the home theater. The home office will be a lighter shade of green.

Painting is harder work than I remember. My father-in-law assured me that lots of things I did 10 or 20 years ago will now be harder than I remember.

With the primer, the walls are really looking like walls. The finishers seem to have done a good job. The few floor-to-ceiling butt joints I ended up putting in all look flat now that there’s a coat of paint. The stairway transition looks pretty good, too. It’s beginning to look like a real space.

The projector arrived. Unfortunately, it failed to power-up. The lamp light flashed red, indicating a bad lamp. I was perturbed, but the seller was quite responsive. He offered a full refund, but I suggested he could just pay for a new lamp. He found an OEM lamp and is having it shipped to me. As much as eBay makes me nervous, I’ve yet to have a truly horrible experience.

The LEDs, though, haven’t shipped yet. I contacted that seller, also. He said they were on back-order. If they aren’t in by Monday, he’ll refund the sale, and I guess I’ll buy $25 dollar LEDs through Amazon.

While I would kind of like to see the paint colors under the actual lighting before we make the final final call, I’m leaning towards painting the walls before I hook up the lights and switches, just because it is so much easier to paint when you don’t have to worry about painting over switches or outlets or trim.

Anyway, we appear to be reaching a very fun part of the project where progress really starts to look like progress. Keep checking back to see how it goes.

“He’s paying a tax rate far lower than what a teacher pays. I’m speaking slowly so this sinks in. The hypocrisy is mind-boggling. This president does class warfare for a year and a half on the campaign trail. He attacks Mitt Romney repeatedly. … And yet this president, after demagoguing this issue for a year and a half, pays an 18 percent tax rate.”

Some people I know agree, but I think they’re missing the point.

Obama hasn’t been going around saying he wants to pay more federal income taxes. He’s been saying the system needs to be changed so that people like him all over the country pay more. If Obama voluntarily paid a higher rate, even a much higher rate, it would add, at best $50,000 or so to federal receipts. Returning the top 2 percent to pre-Bush tax rates, on the other hand, will bring in about $60 billion a year in additional revenue.

There is nothing hypocritical about advocating for a change in the system while still living under the system as it is. Thanks to the fiscal cliff deal Obama insisted on, his taxes will be higher next year, and if he gets his way in other negotiations, loopholes will be closed that will increase his effective rate even more.

This isn’t about what one person pays.

What about Mitt Romney’s tax rates? What about them? He was arguing to keep the status quo. In fact, he was arguing for tax cuts for people in his own bracket. The fact that he already paid less than most what a teacher pays and thought that was too much was why Romney’s tax rate mattered.

But, even aside from the work that someone else is doing, progress is being made. My wife and I have been looking at paint samples, trying to decide on colors. We’re thinking a dark green for the home theater room and a lighter shade for the home office. Maybe a terra cotta for the half-bath and an accent wall in the home office. Once the drywall is finished, I’ll put up a coat of primer. Since we’ll want to see the color samples in the appropriate light, we had to make the call over whether we’d go with LED or CFLs for the recessed lighting. For several reasons, we decided to invest in LEDs. First, the quality of CFLs has gotten extremely variable. Some don’t dim well. They don’t come on right away. The colors, even for identical brands, don’t match. From what I’ve heard, LEDs have fewer of those issues. They also use far less electricity and are supposed to last 20 years or more.

So the LEDs have been ordered. I found some dimmable Sylvania LED bulbs for about $18 per in quantity. Others go for more than $50 a bulb, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that these will be decent, despite the “low” price.

Once the bulbs are in and the switches wired, we’ll check some paint samples and figure out which colors we like the best. We’re also trying to decide what to do about the flooring. We were considering laminate, but are leaning toward bamboo or cork right now.

I also went ahead and ordered the projector. I’ve been keeping my eye on eBay listings for the Epson 8350 projector. It had been running close to $1,200, but I found a new, open-box listing for $925. Again, I’m keeping my fingers crossed. But the seller has a 100 percent rating (same for the light-bulb vendor), so I’m pretty hopeful.

Next weekend will probably entail priming, wiring switches and outlets and, perhaps, putting up ceiling insulation.

It was a short leap from there to wondering why we kept paying for cable TV. My family doesn’t watch much regular TV. My wife and I mostly watch movies and the Daily Show. My son watches cartoons on Netflix. I’m a Walking Dead fan and have been watching Season 2 of Game of Thrones on DVD. None of us are into televised sports, except maybe the Super Bowl, which I watch mostly for the commercials. Most of my television viewing lately has been catching up on series that I didn’t watch when they originally aired: Rescue Me, Breaking Bad, Mad Men.

I called up the cable company and asked how much it would chop off our monthly bill to shut down the TV and just keep Internet service. I was shocked when the operator told me it would save us about $100 a month. That’s with no premium channels. A subscription to Hulu Plus will cost about $8 a month and give us access to The Daily Show and a bunch of other television shows. We’re already paying for Netflix. The Walking Dead just wrapped up its season. When it starts up again, I’ll be able to get a season pass from iTunes for less than $50 — about half a month’s worth of cable for a season’s worth of episodes.

So we cut the cable. So far, the main impact is we no longer have a clock in the living room.

Though I will admit that last night, after a long day of work and driving and a long weekend working on the basement, I was tired and brain dead. When I sat down to veg in front of the TV, I didn’t really want to scroll through all the choices on Netflix or Hulu to find something to watch. What I really wanted was to channel surf. See if some movie I’ve seen a hundred times before (Roadhouse, Shawshank Redemption, Die Hard) was on. Something I could watch without thinking about it. Sure, I could have streamed any of those movies from my home computer, but that required more deliberation than I felt like exerting.

Yeah, there’s tons of great TV on Netflix, but I wasn’t in the mood for great TV. I was in the mood for mindless surfing. I settled on watching an episode of the old Mission Impossible television series.

So I can’t say that I won’t miss cable at all. I’m sure, though, that I’ll figure out an alternative to mindless channel surfing.

A few days after I took the cable boxes back to Cox, I got a text from a friend of mine. He’d just started working for Cox, and one of his first jobs was switching off my television. “Small world,” he said. My thought was that he was probably going to have plenty of work to keep him busy.

At least for awhile.

The cable television industry — like the music industry, like the publishing industry, like the newspaper industry — has failed to adapt, to give customers what they want, how they want it, at a reasonable price. Lots of people are figuring out there’s an alternative.

Now if only there was more competition for high-speed Internet service.

LaPierre infamously said, ”The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” But a look at mass shootings shows that in at least a third of a cases, the shooter was stopped by a good person without a gun.

Here’s a good list (compiled by a gun enthusiast, by the way) of mass shootings and how they were ended. Of the 32 mass shootings studied, 15 ended after police arrived — either because they killed or apprehended the killer or because the shooter killed himself when police arrived. In 17 cases, civilians stopped the shootings before police could arrive. In 11 of those 17 cases. the civilians were unarmed. I would bet in nearly every case in which a shooter was apprehended by citizens (as opposed to shot or apprehended by police) that reloading provided the opportunity for that action. It may only take two seconds to change a magazine (or one second, according to LaPierre), but that time can make all the difference.

Congress should be working on passing a ban on magazines above 10 rounds. Some people say the ban would be useless because there are so many high-capacity magazines already out there. That’s why the ban should include both the sale of new magazines and the transfer of existing ones. (Use the ban recently passed in Connecticut as a model.) Most rampage shooters are in their teens or early 20s. They haven’t been collecting arms for years. Most buy their arsenal shortly before they use it. Making it extremely difficult (and illegal) to purchase high-capacity magazines would stop most of these shooters from acquiring them.

An assault weapon ban might be effective, though I understand the argument that there’s little or no functional difference between an assault rifle and most semi-automatic hunting rifles.

Eleven of these shootings in recent years have been stopped by unarmed civilians. Why not give those heroes a little better chance? There is no constitutional right to a high-capacity magazine, and no legitimate need for one.

LaPierre is wrong: There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that a ban on high-capacity magazines could have made a difference at Sandy Hook. A ban on high-capacity mags could be effective, if not at deterring these rampages, at least in limiting the carnage.

The last wall

The beer to celebrate the last wall.

I put up the last piece of dryall late yesterday afternoon. To be honest, I probably should have quit about an hour before then. I was tired and frustrated, which always leads to stupid mistakes, and a rash of expletives. The last few sheets all seemed to fall just a little off, leaving next to no overlap with the stud. I had to angle the screws in just right to sink them into the stud without being at such an extreme angle the screw head would stick out.

Finally, with the last panel, I realized that it would be easier to attach some pieces of wood to the stud to act as nailers. That worked very well.

So, in  my tiredness and frustration, I made a few stupid mistakes. A cut-out for an outlet ended up being three inches too low (I’m pretty sure that was a result of not paying attention to where the measurement starts on the T-square). You can see the resulting long hole in the photo of the last wall. I screwed in a couple pieces of wood so I can attach a filler scrap in.

Another panel didn’t quite reach the top plate in one corner. It was still possible to anchor it, though, and the gap will be covered by ceiling trim. So I’ll probably either just screw up a small drywall scrap to cover the gap or squirt in some foam insulation before the ceiling and trim go up.

This came out a little sloppier than intended, which you can see if you click on the photo. Hopefully, the finisher can work with it. If not, I’ll try to redo it.

I’ll call the finisher a friend recommended today for an estimate. There are a couple of areas I want to point out to make sure my sloppy work can be covered up in the finishing process, especially the transition at the bottom of the basement stairs. I’ll hold onto a couple pieces of scrap board just in case I need to redo it.

Frustration and exhaustion aside, I was very happy to have the drywall done. The celebratory beer tasted great. As I’ve mentioned, the drywall has been both the most physically demanding and the most mentally challenging aspect of the project so far. Though it hasn’t been the most time-consumming (the wiring wins that prize), it’s definitely felt like the biggest, hardest piece of the puzzle, and I’m glad to have it behind me.

It’s not all downhill from here. The ceiling and floor installations will have their own challenges, I’m sure. But I feel like I’m over the hump. The space is really coming together.

The longest wall.

I came out better than the sheet of drywall.

I made good progress on the drywall today, finishing the longest wall in the basement. As I had hoped, it went up pretty quickly. It was an easy wall, with just a few outlets, a drain access and one switch to cut out, and the studs were properly spaced for the most part, so the drywall fit the way it was supposed to. I did come across a couple of bowed studs, but I fixed them right up the same way I did the other: Saw the stud in half at the middle of the bow, sister a two-foot length of stud to the side with eight screws so that the stud is now straight. Worked like a charm.

Then I started on the last wall in the home theater area. That’s where it got a little interesting. I made the cuts I needed for the first sheet: A two-gang switch, an outlet box and an opening for the plumbing and electric to where the wet bar will be. The cuts were perfect, on the first try. I laid down some construction adhesive on the studs and got the sheet in place. It seemed stable. I bent over to pick up the screw gun, and BAM! Wallboard over my back. The wallboard snapped in half. Once I recovered from the shock of having a sheet of drywall drop over me, I realized I was fine.

But it worked out in the end.

The finish is a little rough, but some tape and compound will take care of it, and if it shows a little bit, it won’t matter much. Most of the cut will be covered by the wet bar.

But I had a problem. I had just ordered eight more sheets of drywall because I had underestimated the first go around. I thought that left me an extra sheet, but I realized it didn’t. I had estimated just right. Except for not anticipating losing a sheet to a fall. So I decided to go ahead and put it up in two pieces. It worked out pretty well. The break wasn’t totally clean, but it ought to be alright with some tape and joint compound.

Even if it ends up a little rough, it will just be a reminder of the adventure. And most of it will be covered by the wet bar, anyway.

I have three more sheets to put up to finish the last theater wall, then four sheets to finish the last wall in the office, then the drywall will be done. I should be able to finish tomorrow.

I’m pretty sure I’ve decided to have a pro do the taping and mudding. I’ve about had enough of the drywall. Once the drywall’s finished, we get to paint. That should be fun, and it’s something my wife can help with. Then I’ll get the fireplace ready for the faux stone and get ready to put up ceiling. Things are coming together.