Basement Renovation Progress Report - Subfloor

Believe it or not, we're still chipping away at the basement renovation. We always seem to have other things going on each weekend that keep us from putting in a good day's (or 2 days') work. Sometimes Tom mentions taking on a house flip, and I think, "We can't even get ours renovated in a reasonable time - how could we do two?"

So most of the subfloor is in now. There is still an area in the workshop that we're holding off on completing until the window is replaced. It's on order now so, fingers crossed, it'll be in by the end of June.

The subfloor we decided on was AmDry insulated flooring in 2 ft x 4 ft panels. Along with the plywood and foam insulation, the panels have a "waffled" vapour barrier underside that allows moisture and air to flow beneath. If there's ever a water problem, the water will flow under the floor to the sump in the corner.

The panels fit together with plastic connectors rather than connecting directly to each other. It's still tongue and groove, but the boards are all "groove" and the connectors are all "tongue" so you never have to think about which way to place the board; it always fits.

It was a little more expensive than the other subflooring available, but it also has a higher R value (R-5 vs. R-1.7), meaning that our basement will stay toasty warm in winter.

I say "we", but Tom did most of it. I had fun banging some of the panels into place, but I left all of the cutting to him. The floor is laid in a staggered pattern to minimize long joints and flexing, with shims placed along the wall all the way around the room. This small extra space created by the shim allows for expansion and contraction of the panels over time/temperature changes.

We're both really happy with how it looks and how easy it was to install. I like that it looks like the panels are grouted. The dogs were a little wary of walking on it, but once we moved some furniture and a dog bed into the area, they decided it wasn't so bad after all.

And there you have it. Not the most exciting update - but some progress has been made.

Basement Wall Framing & Insulating

 

When we moved into our house the basement was unfinished. Or maybe it was considered partially finished since there was insulation and drywall hung? If you recall the photos from our original house tour, the basement was a big open space just waiting to become a functional living area.

A lot of the drywall and insulation had been damaged by moisture so we tore it all down to start fresh. We also wanted to install additional electrical boxes, so it had to come down to run the wiring anyway. Once it was gone and the old insulation removed, Tom decided he would rather have spray foam insulation go back in instead of the usual pink fiberglass type.

We gathered a few quotes, and the one thing we were told by all of the installers was that the framing was too close to the wall for foam. Normally your framing is right up against the wall, the pink insulation is installed, and a vapour barrier goes up to keep out moisture. With spray foam insulation there is no separate vapour barrier - it acts as the barrier. If your framing is against the concrete, moisture will find its way through the wood and into your drywall. No good. Instead, there is a gap between the wall and the framing that is filled by the foam.

So before we could have the insulation installed, the framing had to come out and new framing had to go up. You know on the renovation shows when they say, "It's demo day! Yay!"? Demo is only fun for a hot minute - then it gets noisy, and dirty, you have a headache, and you still have to lug all of the boards and whatnot up out of the house. But we got it done in a day and moved on to the reinstall.

Okay, that's a bit of a lie since we took a break from that job to install two new basement windows at the front of the house and box in the two at the back. Part of our moisture problem was caused by the large gaps around the front window frames, so large that you could see daylight through them.

One of the benefits of replacing the windows and boxing them in was that we now knew where the framing and drywall would go. We dropped a plumb line past the front of the window "box" down to the floor and marked it. That's where the sole plate would sit. We also marked the spot on the joist for the ceiling plate. We did this in a few more places along the wall and then used a chalk line to draw a straight line between the marks.

The sole plates were installed using a Ramset air tool. The nail, called a pin, is used with a cartridge and fires into the wood and the concrete like a .22 caliber bullet. One of our dogs is now terrified if anyone even heads towards the basement because of the noises from the compressor/ramset/air nailer. The poor thing is traumatized. We've started taking her down there for cookie breaks to try and help her get over it but it's slow going.

The ceiling plate and the studs are attached using an air nailer. The one we use is by Bostitch. To attach the studs a nail is driven diagonally (toenailed) through the stud and into the sole plate, one on each side and one at the front.
 

Three nails go into the top as well. The bottom of the stud is flush with the front of the sole plate, but since you want it to be plumb top to bottom you need to line it up with a level before nailing it in at the top. This leveling means that it might not necessarily be flush with the ceiling plate.

The studs are spaced 16" on center, i.e. from the center of one stud to the center of the next. The easiest way to maintain this spacing is to make a spacer jig from a spare piece of 2x4. If a stud is 1.5" thick (and it usually is), the jig will be 14.5" long (16 inches minus 1.5 inches). Here's a tip: to make it even easier to slide the spacer in and out of the space, cut off one of the edges on each end (opposite sides) at a 45 degree angle. This will also ensure it lays flat against the plate, in the off-chance that one of the angled nails didn't go all the way in.

When framing around the windows, the stud on the far side needs to be installed before the ones in the middle. Measure across from the nearest stud in 16" increments until past the window and install the full stud. Then a crosspiece is installed horizontally below the window from stud to stud. The studs installed below the windows are still 16" apart (and are called cripples - dropping some knowledge on ya!)

Between the studs we added blocks for stability. These blocks are just pieces of 2x4 cut to length (14.5 inches again). We put blocking at the top and bottom of the wall, about a third of the way from the ceiling and floor. They can be staggered or run straight across - staggering them just makes them easier to install as you can nail straight through from the opposite side instead of toenailing at an angle. You can climb on our framing, it's so strong now. I know because I did.😛

This reinforcement blocking can also act as a fire block, i.e. it breaks up the air space between studs so that should a fire break out, the flames won't shoot up the wall like in a chimney to the next floor. Our framing is not tight against the wall so the reinforcing blocks aren't fire blocks, but the foam insulation does act as a block. (Although insulation itself is still flammable, of course.)

Once all of the framing was in place and the new electrical wiring had been run, it was time for the spray foam insulation. By this time it was winter and it was pretty darn cold in that basement. We took the dogs out of the house for the day (they got to go to work with Tom!), and the basement was sprayed in just a few hours. I went to look at it as soon as I got home and I couldn't believe how much warmer the space was. That soon.
  

 
The walls are pretty freaky looking - almost like a horror movie, dripping green everywhere.

 

Here are some side-by-side before & after shots:

I'm sure people think we're crazy for being so excited for the insulation, but it was a really long time in coming. Next up is to put in the floor and then we can start framing in rooms and hanging drywall. Here's a link to our eventual floorplan. That's how we'll be spending the rest of our winter. How about you?

Basement Renovation Plans

It's been pretty quiet around the ol' homestead lately. The unfinished basement is our first big project. We're still in the planning stages so there isn't a lot of action, just talking, talking, talking. And drawing endless floorplans of course.

(Warning: the photos for the next little while aren't going to be pretty as we do all of the maintenance work necessary to get to the pretty stuff.)

It's nice that the basement is totally unfinished. It's a blank slate if you will. A blank slate with a couple of cat pee stains.

To prep it for...whatever we end up doing, we painted the entire floor with an epoxy acrylic paint from Behr meant for concrete and garage floors. It's an all-in-one product that just rolls on (two coats) like regular paint, but gives a strong stain-resistant finish. It's even tint-able.

The hardest part was preparing the floor for painting. We scraped off any residue we could find, swept, and then scrubbed the floor down with diluted Mr. Clean and a stiff brush. Once it was dry we swept it again. We also took down the lower level of drywall all around so that we could get the paint as close to the building frame as possible. I think I mentioned before that we're going to replace all of the old drywall as it was hung (badly) more than 15 years ago and then left. You can see where there is some water damage and mildew in the front corner.

Painting the floor was kind of fun. You don't need to tape off the edges, the area is flat, and the paint covers really well. The tricky part was that we still have "stuff" in the basement - some boxes that haven't been unpacked, Tom's workbench and power tools, and furniture for the eventual family room. We split the basement into 3 sections, emptied one section into another and painted the now empty one. We had to wait 24 hours between coats, and we chose to wait a week each time before moving the boxes, etc. onto a freshly painted area, so it ended up taking 3 weekends to complete. Aren't you glad we don't work for you?

Once the floor was done, Tom was ready to go ahead with new drywall. The basement is pretty cold right now without it, and that sure isn't helping our heating bill. The basement is already wired with electrical outlets all around, but since we don't really know what the room layout will be or where the furniture will go, he installed more. He ran an additional, completely separate circuit around the room, adding outlets in the places where there were gaps. He also installed two electrical boxes up high on the north (left) wall as the TV will be mounted along there somewhere and it would be nice to have the cables completely hidden.

Now he was all ready to start drywalling - he even bought himself a drywall hoist to hold the sheets. But then he started researching and decided that, even though the walls are already insulated, he'd rather replace it with spray foam insulation. There have been some leaks around the front windows in the past and he's concerned that moisture will get in behind and rot the frame. So we're waiting on some quotes right now.

In the meantime we've started sketching our ideas - this is my favourite so far. I used Floorplanner to design it. The program is really easy to use - and free!

We know we want a separate laundry room, a powder room, a storage room, and a family room/TV room that's as large as possible. Since there is so much space to work with (and so little room upstairs), we thought it would be a good idea to also incorporate an office/4th bedroom. The window in that area of the basement is so large (4 panes wide) that it would be a shame to just turn the room into storage. Maybe I'll get to have another craft room like I had before.

We'll have a separate room for the furnace, water heater, and water softener - in our last house they shared a room with the washer/dryer and everything was always covered in lint or dust. There'll be a door from the laundry room though for access.

The laundry room is going to have a 4 foot tall raised shower stall so that we can bath the dogs there. We'll be able to come in the front door and straight down the stairs into the shower, instead of carrying their muddy bodies through the house to the bathroom.

We're thinking of something like this:

Houzz

The rest of the empty space will be taken up with a drying rack. We hang dry a large portion of our clothes so we need the space.

The storage room will be accessed from the laundry room probably. We thought about having the door at the end, but I was concerned that we wouldn't be able to get to items at the back if they were loaded in that way. I don't know; still working on it.

I'm loving the large area we have for the family room. And yes, there will most likely always be a dog hanging out on the couch, just like in the drawing. That empty space at the top is still up for grabs - a workout area, maybe? We're hoping to build a walkout to the backyard someday so we aren't planning on building any rooms against the back wall.

The next thing I want to do is tape out the walls on the floor with painter's tape to see if the layout makes sense. That means unpacking more boxes. It's mostly kitchen stuff - I don't know how it all fit in our last kitchen, which seemed so small itself. I think there might be some KonMari in my future......