cmonkey's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
cmonkey
Posts: 1815
Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2014 11:56 am

Our New Basement

Post by cmonkey »

I want to start sharing a lot more of the work I'm doing here, mostly because it serves as great motivation to keep working. Looking back at the photos I posted last fall makes me realize how far we already but that we have a long way to go. I'd like to post photos at least once per week. Hopefully more often. If I'm not posting, call me out!

I've spent the past two nights working several hours each on getting the craft room and bedroom drywall finished. Nearly there! I did, however, forget about the corner bead and so that is not done yet. Need some supplies to finish it up which will be procured this weekend.


Here's the craft room tonight after doing about 2 hours of sanding. Still some left to do.

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In wall shelving I'm building to hold the DW's massive yarn collection. She will easily fill this up once I get shelving put in every 12 inches or so. I built this in a wall where we had a lot of room behind the wall due to thick wall braces we had installed.

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Looking out of the bedroom. That soffit is hiding the duct I had to move. It was directed toward the left across the door.

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The other side of the bedroom.

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Here's how our window jams turned out. I really like them. I used a producted called Textrim. It is essentially PVC plastic and will never rot and can also be cut with a saw of your choice.

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Looking into the craftroom & bedroom from the eventual office space. Yes that's our basement kitty.

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Here's where I have to tub at. It is fairly high off the ground and so we'll need to figure out how to make it easy to get in.

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A better view of the base of the tub. It is as solid as the concrete that it's sitting on. I jumped up and down and the tub doesn't budge. I also have the tub screwed into the wall in two spots and have ledger boards under the sides.

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Here's my remodel buddy. I call him bubba-cat because he's so fat but his real name is Monty. I let him outside today while I sanded so he didn't have to breath all that in and he quickly wanted back in since its so cold out.

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cmonkey
Posts: 1815
Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2014 11:56 am

Re: cmonkey's journal

Post by cmonkey »

ffj wrote:I hope some after pictures are coming? You've left us in a depressed state and you need to fix it. :)

Ha yes, you were a little too quick.

vexed87
Posts: 1521
Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2015 8:02 am
Location: Yorkshire, UK

Re: cmonkey's journal

Post by vexed87 »

Loving the progress pics. Just imagine the sweat equity you are putting into this place.

I know you are not doing advanced construction here, but have you done any of this kind of work before? It's a big project, I know from bitter experience (I bit off way more than I had time to chew in my current residence ;)).

Have you thought about how you are going to insert/mount DW's shelving? I have just been (re)learning about dado and rabbet joints and I'm getting rather impatient for my new carpentry tools to arrive.

cmonkey
Posts: 1815
Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2014 11:56 am

Re: cmonkey's journal

Post by cmonkey »

@vexed, Thanks. We are quite ambitious!

Yes we gutted one of our rooms right after moving in and built a kitchen. It was a carpeted sunroom with wood paneling previously. I can post some photos tonight. At that point I hadn't had any experience so I'm going in with a lot more this time.

Thinking wooden dowel pegs or similar for the shelves but I haven't looked around for any other ideas.
vexed87 wrote:I know from bitter experience (I bit off way more than I had time to chew in my current residence ;)).

What project are you working on/worked on?

vexed87
Posts: 1521
Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2015 8:02 am
Location: Yorkshire, UK

Re: cmonkey's journal

Post by vexed87 »

I helped paint/tile/trim/floor and fit my 1600sqft place. My folks own it, but I get to live here for a while free in exchange for the labour I put in.

It took two weeks off work then about 4 months of constant work in the evenings and weekends after that. Never again... until next time ;)

cmonkey
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Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2014 11:56 am

Re: cmonkey's journal

Post by cmonkey »

Yea it takes time. I'm hopeful I can stick to my plan for this year. It took us from June of that year to September to get the kitchen built, so 3 months. 3 months is what I allot for our largest area of remodel this time and given its not as complex and I have experience I think we can do it especially if I can continue working on it something like 5 of 7 days per week.

julien
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2015 1:45 am

Re: cmonkey's journal

Post by julien »

Ydobon wrote:I suspect that people with very high income are quite different from you and I and it will all relate to cashflow to help provide for their massive 'wants' lists. We might order takeout pizza, they'll fly to Italy for a weekend and stay in a palatial suite, that sort of thing :roll:
I believe it is much more about the social background you were raised in.

My parents used to make max. $1.5K to raise a family of 4 (I have a sibling), in a European country comparable with US, back then in the 90's and early 00's.

Today at the beginning of my career I am making >$10K net income / month but I am only spending something around $2K on average. Truth is, I don't feel like I need to spend more nor do I take any major pleasure in spending more. I guess this is a good thing as it will allow me to become FI way before most people in my industry who are making the same but *indeed* just spend it all. But then again they don't share my social background.

cmonkey
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Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2014 11:56 am

Kitchen Renovation

Post by cmonkey »

Here is what our kitchen looked like when we moved in. Carpet and wood paneling. Pretty useless overall since we already had 2 bedrooms a sitting room and a huge livingroom. We also took out all the windows and put in a sliding door.

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3 months later it looked like this. All work done by us. We are happy with how it turned out, its still the nicest room in the whole house. This is an old photo from 2011 but it hasn't changed except we now have a white dishwasher.

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Looking the other way.

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And after. We built a cabinet peninsula of sorts and I even custom cut the formica countertop. It turned out....just ok for what it is. Given the choice again I would have had someone come in and put in fake granite.

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For tonight I got the first coating of mud on both soffits. While at work today I watched a guy putting up cornerbead on some drywall...using a staple gun. Genius! It worked much better than short screws. Tomorrow will be a light sand and touch up work. I will be glad when I'm on to something other than drywall.

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vexed87
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Location: Yorkshire, UK

Re: cmonkey's journal

Post by vexed87 »

Impressive!

Just curious, didn't your house have a kitchen previously? What did the previous occupants eat, did they photosynthesis in the sunroom? :D

cmonkey
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Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2014 11:56 am

Re: cmonkey's journal

Post by cmonkey »

ffj wrote:are you thinning the mud at all?
No I have not been, however, doing some reading last night I think thinning is in order. It is a bit difficult to work with but not too bad. Last night went pretty well. My butts looks horrible at the moment though! That's what I was looking into and discovered this. I wish I had looked into it before I started but will be doing that going forward.

Do you thin the entire bucket or just what you are currently working with? Any recommended ratio? I will try it going forward, anything to make drywall finishing more pleasant! I have a power drill and paddle so can mix it well.
vexed87 wrote:Impressive!

Just curious, didn't your house have a kitchen previously? What did the previous occupants eat, did they photosynthesis in the sunroom? :D

Thanks! Yes it was a room in the middle of our house, very tiny and carpeted with apartment carpet. Really really gross room, it is my least favorite room in the house. Mostly because it still has old kitchen cabinet on top but we tore out the bottom cabinets and left the unpainted walls.

cmonkey
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Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2014 11:56 am

Re: cmonkey's journal

Post by cmonkey »

ffj wrote:Take a clean bucket and trowel some of the mud into it from your original bucket. Add some water and mix it well until you have a nice consistency.
Night and day difference! I mixed it to what I would call toothpaste consistency and I can't believe how easy it was to put on and make look good. In half the time! :lol: Also the tapering/feathering is near perfect now. On top of that I noticed other things - it wasn't as messy/gloopy to work with. Less on the floor. Also I could start my smoothing run in the middle of the plane without it leaving a large groove. Before I had to start at the end and pray I got it smooth.

I think pictures are worth a thousand words. :D

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I think if I had done the bottom layer with thinned mud it would look even better than it does, but I couldn't be happier with this. I actually enjoyed drywall mudding this afternoon. Thank you for suggesting I thin it.

cmonkey
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Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2014 11:56 am

Re: cmonkey's journal

Post by cmonkey »

Makes sense, there is a learning curve for everything. I am super glad I learned this before struggling through the entire house.

We are drywalling the ceiling, but not right away. I have old electrical and plumbing to rip out on the first floor before we put up the ceilings.

Ideally I'd really just like to put them up now but it'd be hard to remove everything. I suppose I could just cut off the wires and leave them but that's good copper recycling that pays big bucks.

So we also need to wait to paint everything since you paint ceilings before walls. Sigh, so much coordination and moving stuff around.

Maybe if I really think about it I could somehow temporarily move all the upstairs electric lines out of the way.....hmm.....

Edit - You know what why not just rip out those lines above these two rooms now? We have another room above our garage that wouldn't be touched so we could make that our 'living space'. No power in our bedroom (which is above the basement bedroom) would mean running an extension cord for a lamp. I'm going to seriously ponder this because I hate the idea of leaving these two rooms half done.

spoonman
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Joined: Thu Mar 28, 2013 4:15 am

Re: cmonkey's journal

Post by spoonman »

Those are some great photos, looks like you are making some solid progress. And congrats on having a great 2015, those numbers are very impressive. More importantly, you guys are executing your plan in a beautiful fashion, that's what matters.

cmonkey
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Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2014 11:56 am

Re: cmonkey's journal

Post by cmonkey »

@spoonman, thanks for the kind words. 2015 was a great year, however, I'm glad it's over. 2016 is when our real journey begins as we're going into it full steam ahead instead of starting mid-year. Despite doing the renovation we are still going to accomplish pretty impressive savings rates. Somewhere around 50% this month I think, but the next few months will be higher since we won't have as many costs for the hallway. Bathrooms are expensive to put together.

Speaking of the renovation this weekend saw me finish up the drywall in the two basement rooms (except for sanding any additional layers on my corners). I got this done on Friday evening then Saturday we went to town with a long list of about 95% of what we need to get the bathroom complete. I got all the electrical done except for putting in the exhaust fan (we bought it though) later that day. I spent a good chunk of yesterday getting the drain lines put together, however, I haven't cemented them yet. Doing that tonight. I had to get a little clever with the tub drain as the kit I purchased would have had the line running below the drain outlet. Not good! After a trip to town (again) I have it put together and just needing cementing. We got our vanity/sink ordered last week and it is exactly what we want and didn't cost much actually. Yesterday we finally picked out our sink faucet and a roman style faucet/handshower for the tub. Its going to look pretty nice when we're done. Chrome!

Goals for the week include getting our pex lines in for hot and cold for both tub and sink and also the toilet (although I think I need to go to town again*). After that I have some framing to finish and would like to be putting up drywall and cement board by the weekend. I'll post some pics of weekend work tonight.

We have also pretty much decided we are killing power to half of our house. The wife's craftroom (essentially our sitting room as that's where the computer is too) and our bedroom are right above the two basement rooms and we are ripping all the electric out this week so we can start putting the ceiling up, possibly this weekend or before depending on how I'm doing with the bathroom. We can utilize our actual living room as that's above the garage and separate from this part.

*I swear I will spend more in gas money going to and from the hardware store than I will on the actual renovation. I plan pretty well but I get only 99% of what I need and that other 1% is the keystone piece usually. :roll:

Riggerjack
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Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: cmonkey's journal

Post by Riggerjack »

I don't usually read the journals, I wish I'd seen this sooner.

First, you have a nice place and I envy your savings rate!

But I have a few worries about you remodel. Specifically, the platon, which is designed to go on the outside of the foundation wall. It really isn't made to make a seal, it is made to break hydrostatic pressure against the concrete, and provide a drain path for any water that gets thru.

I see that you have worked out a solution involving a sump pump. But as you mentioned, the sump still has water after the pump shuts off. How will you deal with this water vapor? I see you are using greenboard, but the framing wood and OSB are cellulose based. Add water vapor, remove ventilation, and you have a black mold incubator.

Full disclosure, I overbuild, and I'm on an island in the Puget Sound. Maybe my concerns with water are from building in rainforests, and out on the plains, water isn't such an issue. I hope so.

cmonkey
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Re: cmonkey's journal

Post by cmonkey »

@Riggerjack thanks for stopping by!

The platon will keep moisture from getting on the OSB (unless it floods, but we have never had a flooded basement). Armtec actually advertises it for this. The main reason for putting it down was to let the concrete breathe and block 'dampness' from getting to the OSB (although the sump takes care of it pretty well). I did quite a bit of research before deciding on it.

We have a french drain leading to the sump on the one side where a small trickle of rain would come in occasionally and it is covered by platon as well. All the 2x4s are treated so that should inhibit mold growth but even still our basement is much dryer now than it was before the sump/platon. I am pretty sure mold doesn't grow on concrete (maybe I'm wrong?), it needs an organic base on which to grow. We had tons of mold in all the stuff we ripped out but there was nothing on the concrete.

The sump basin does drain away once the hydrostatic pressure is relieved, it usually takes less than a day. It is then bone dry in the basin.

I'm also planning a second sump pump/basin in our garage which is 1 foot lower than (and connected to) our basement which will provide a bit more moisture protection.

I have pondered rigging up some ventilation for the space between the framing and the block foundation. Something like a small fan that sucks air in on one end and funnels it out on the other. Or maybe a bathroom fan of sorts rigged up in that space that just funnels air outside. Or maybe this would work! I like that channel, its actually where I first learned of platon.

Your comment about living in the plains is pretty accurate, we generally don't have much of a water problem as compared to the PNW. Since moving in our only problem time has been during really heavy rains in spring or summer.

cmonkey
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Re: cmonkey's journal

Post by cmonkey »

I linked to the channel in my post above but wanted to reiterate to anyone who might be doing rennovation work, John Heisz (I Build It Home) is a pretty fantastic DIYer. He has other channels as well and has made really neat stuff. I find him extremely motivating, watching his videos put me in a great mood and I always wanna start working on something afterwards. Not to mention that his house is very similar to mine when it comes to the work that needs doing (structural repairs, unfinished basement, completely gutting) and he's doing everything by himself with very few helpers.

He just put up a 6 part series on drywalling. I wish I had found it a month ago! He has excellent tips that I will be doing from now on.

His main channel which has all his neatest projects.

Riggerjack
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Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: cmonkey's journal

Post by Riggerjack »

I glad I wasn't the first to think about water vapor, then. You won't have mold problems with concrete or pressure treated wood. I hope you won't have problems at all. If the leak is localized, I highly recommend a Simpson product called crack pak. It is a system for pressurized epoxy sealing cracks. My foundation wall is 8 inch reinforced concrete, with foundation drains, 2 coats of asphalt emulsion, backfilled with sand, and still we had a leak. Before we finished downstairs, we used the crackpak. Problem solved. It's a hundred bucks, and totally worth it.

Have you done anything to deal with water from the outside? As an example, in my Everett house, built in 1910, the gutters just drained at the base of the house. It is post and pier, we were cleaning up the crawl space, so I trenched around the perimeter, laid a french drain to drop the water table, and hard piped the gutters to dry wells. I know, it'd survived a hundred years as it was, but it could be better. No more puddles in the crawlspace. The most important lesson I learned in construction was to have a plan for water, and how to deal with it everywhere. It's good to know that is a local solution to a local problem.

cmonkey
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Re: cmonkey's journal

Post by cmonkey »

Riggerjack wrote:Have you done anything to deal with water from the outside?
I've spent about 3 years working on the waterproofing, mostly outside. Do some work...wait for heavy rainstorm...make some corrections...wait for heavy rainstorm....etc...Without the inside work I finally got it corrected enough outside to get it down to a small puddle forming in one corner of the basement. It took forever because only a certain level of rain made it leak.

We put in a french drain outside as well and tapered the dirt around the house to slope away from house into the french drain. That took care of a majority of the surface water that came in. We live on a man-made flattened area dug into a hill so the rain comes rolling down the hill (and now down the french drain). We didn't do anything on the outside of the foundation though. I think that's the one thing that we could do that we didn't simply because of the work involved. I didn't think it worth it since we only had a little coming in at that point. We have had 3-4 inches at a time come down per storm and still not much came in.

I also have 30 foot pipes taking water away from the gutters. That was the first thing I did. Just that helped a ton!

Despite have some hairline cracks in our basement foundation we never did have hydrostatic pressure/flooding come in and I think its because the pressure relieved in the front of our garage. There is a pretty good sized crack out front and every time it rained like heck water would spurt out that crack and down the driveway for several days.

Thanks for all the input I appreciate the thoughts of others. :)

spoonman
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Re: cmonkey's journal

Post by spoonman »

I admire your guts, because that's what it takes to do serious DYI home improvements. I'm not sure if I could ever get any sleep knowing I might have introduced a waterleak somewhere.

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