The Basement Begins

Get ready. I’m thinking there will be many posts about the downstairs. To introduce, the basement was almost completely unfinished, excepting a bit of work done by the previous owner, most of which we’re having to redo because he botched it so badly. But, hey, kudos to him for trying.

We were lucky enough to convince my dad to fly out and help us do some of the more mind-boggling prep work that we really didn’t have any idea how to start. Since Jaron’s on break, the two of them got quite a bit done.

Day one, dad and Jaron tackled the plumbing issue. The guy who lived here before us had set everything up to have a sink, toilet, and shower in the bathroom, but he failed to properly vent the sink. Our inspector kindly pointed out that we would need to fix that right away. So, that was first on the list. The boys had a tricky time figuring out just how and where to add the vent. The only real solution involved shoving a large piece of PVC into a small space. This took a lot of cutting out parts of studs and some tricky shoving.  At about 7 p.m. they had everything in place and were ready to settle down for a movie. But, then I washed my hands in the upstairs sink and water leaked all over the basement. Oops.

Jaron's a good helper...

Finished product (take 2)

 They were troopers and went back to Lowes and bought all those millions of PVC pieces again, cut out all their earlier work, and started over from the beginning. Both were a bit more attentive the second time around and by 10 p.m. we had up-to-code basement plumbing and no leaks!

When the plumbing was finished, the boys textured and painted the bathroom walls, laid the floor, installed a toilet and sink, and my dad even patched the busted shower floor so we don’t have to replace it. Go dad! So we now have two functioning bathrooms, so long as you don’t require a door to the shower or room itself…

old bathroom

old bathroom prepped for painting

New sink, mirror, and light fixture

new floor and old toilet (from upstairs bath) re-installed

before work

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The next big project was framing out a room and closet (for Kara!!) in an odd space around the corner of the bathroom. From what I can tell, they didn't have any problems with this part. I came home from work one day and they had it all finished before dinner time

measuring twice

  

my dad's a good helper, too!

finished wall!

and an itty-bitty closet

Then came the real challenge: lighting. I think my dad and Jaron spent 2-3 days on this project alone. They struggled so much that I had to take a day off from work to help them! ;)

For those of you who have toured our basement, you’ll remember that a single Coors lamp provided light for the entire 30’ x 16’ basement—actually that lamp didn’t even have a bulb in it, now that I think of it. Needless to say, my Dad was a little more than ready to quit working in the dark. He and Jaron installed 8 can lights, in two perfectly-spaced rows, down the center of the main living area. That was the easy part, and I’m sure it wasn’t all that easy.

this is the type of can light they installed

two of the eight rows

wiring for the hall lights

Jaron really wanted to stretch everyone’s electrical knowledge and requested a 4-way lighting system (meaning electricity to three switches plus one set of lights).  The idea is that the light over the stairs and hallway be controlled by switches in three different locations.  It only took us two days to figure out how to properly do that. The 4-way lighting system is actually really simple, but we ran into so much trouble trying to tap in to the existing power lines! We had it working multiple times, but always with a glitch—the upstairs kitchen lights came on, too; or, the stair light didn’t come on with the hallway lights; and (my favorite), when everything was lighting up correctly but the one switch at the bottom of the stairs blew the breaker every time we used it. I’m sure the inspector would have loved that!

After 12 YouTube research sessions and 32 trials, we finally figured it out. Again, at about 10 p.m. You should have been there for the party after that one!

So, thanks Dad and Jaron for putting in so many hours down there. It still looks like an unfinished basement, but we’re so much closer now to actually being able to use that space. I can’t wait!