5/08/2009

My basement renovation project progress: May 2009

Spring is officially here and yard work and family has been taking priority for me. One of the new things to happen is my Girlfriend’s sister has moved into our basement and will be living there for the next Month.

2 Projects came from this all in the same day. a.) Renovating the Basement’s ½ Bathroom and b.) Installing a temporary door to keep her cat downstairs (I’m allergic).

Like with any project around the home you have the helpful “check list” for projects

1.) Measure! If you don’t know how much space you have or are going to be dealing with you’re looking at a large percentage of material waste in your project. In today’s economy and with urgent need to help our environment, every little bit of scrap needs to be avoided.

2.) Draw it out. When you’re building anything that requires solid cuts, making a drawing and measuring it will help you do the math, make your cut list and keep waste down and your work time down.

3.) Clearing the work area: Making sure we had a clear work area, work surfaces, and a clear place to store things makes life so much simpler.

Our bathroom flooring was chosen because it’s an inorganic laminate flooring with a built in sub floor in it. This will have to go down first and cut outs made so that the toilet can be installed. The walls in the bathroom are going to be painted as well.

The Door will be installed on the walk in mud stones. Because it’s only temporary and the Homeowner didn’t want too much damage to the walls (which I’ll have to repair later anyway) we’re going with simple wood studs and a pre-framed door.

Next Projects on the list: Molding, More Painting, and a built in bookcase.