Long Time Coming

Here's me. About a year ago in our "finished" basement. You can't tell in this one, but with the furnace cranked this room got to a maximum temperature of 12C. Needless to say, less than comfortable and embarrassing even, at times.

Then one day, while setting up to record some drums for Pre/Post, we noticed that the carpet was soaking wet, as there was water coming in through the foundation. A crowbar revealed the crack, and the lack of insulation. This was the beginning..

Well, where there's one crack, there are surely others. We decided to completely gut the basement and repair all the cracks with the potential to leak. After excavating the exterior foundation to the footing with a shovel, we decided that we'd change our approach. We ended up repairing the cracks by epoxy injection from the inside. Thanks Pat for the truck and advice. Stan and Matthew for helping shovel. There are a few funny stories to tell about the work to this point involving extremely quick setting concrete and others.

Now that all the garbage has been taken out to the dump and the foundation was repaired, I started on insulating all the walls with extruded polystyrene insulation. (oh, after insulating between the floor joists along the foundation) That was a good test of my spatial reasoning, let me tell you. Once that was done, Stan helped me frame it in for the fiberglass insulation.

Next step, electrical. Now this was one of the more rewarding and exciting parts of the work. There was a lot of humming and head-scratching before this step to plan out where we'd wire the new recessed lights and wiring for optimum home theatre sound and electrical for band practice etc. Finally it was all decided, and we hired an electrician to come in and do that. Great decision. Once the electrical was in, we filled the framing in the walls and ceiling with insulation. Also, installed a subfloor to warm it up a bit more.

Finally, Finishing! This step took a long time. Both because it was done on evenings and weekends, but also because there is a lot detail to look after. Colours and choosing materials, and trim, all after the main coverings are on. Trim IS a four letter word, by the way. It might be hard to tell, but there is a TON of trim in our basement. Thanks to Mat and Scott for the help and tools. Finally, I rallied the troops (Rich, Scott, Mat) to help me install carpet and Voila!
Come on over and watch a movie. It's AWESOME!

Behind the scenes footage:

Spare bedroom gutted as well.
Insulated and Framed. This was my first framing job, ever. Unless you count bike jumps when I was 10.
Drywalling. Thanks Scott for helping me carry 4x10 foot sheets of drywall on the roof of his Golf. Also, thanks for the tips and tools! Sanding sucks, so if you're a drywall connoisseur, don't look closely at my seams!
Finished!

Miscellaneous Behind the Scenes:

Kelsey and Gordo doing some detailing.

The carpet crew, featuring plumber butts.

Me during one of those unglorious nights of insulating behind the cupboards. It's been a long day..

My bro helping with some sanding in the spare bedroom

The new furnace. There's a story behind this one. A bit dicey for a while but there's a happy ending.

So if you've been wondering where we've been for the last few months, now you know.

Come over and watch a movie with us.

- Ty