Before & After

When we first moved into our house in 2008 we had the vision of "someday" finishing a portion of the basement for the kids to have a playroom (And a place for the toys!). Well one day we just decided to go for it. It took about 4 months of working on this project nights and weekends but it was so worth it- Here are some of the photos we took along the way!

This was basically what our basement looked like once we cleared all of our stuff out of this side.

After doing a lot of research i decided to use the Dri-Core subfloor. In the end we think it was a great choice!

Here's the subfloor going down. It's pretty easy for the most part. Just line the tiles up and bang them in place with a rubber mallet and 2x4. You have to be careful at either end to make sure you leave at least 12 inches of tile. You also want to stagger your seams for stability. I ended up using a ramset powder actuated gun to secure my tiles to the concrete once everything was set. This helped to level out slightly uneven spots in the concrete.

The plan was to build out a small storage space under the stairs.

Here's a shot of the basement with most of the subfloor down. It was a little tricky cutting around the post, but with a little careful planning it all worked out.

Once the sublfloor was down it was time to start framing. Thanks to my neighbor George for all of his help. We banged out most of the framing in a day.

Some of the framing work.....

You can see here that the top plate of the longest stretch of the wall didn't line up with a ceiling joist. We just nailed 2x4 pieces perpendicular to the closest 2 joists along the entire stretch of wall to give us something to secure the top plate too. This worked well, although i'd recommend using something thinner like a 1x4. These strips became a nuisance when it was time to finish the drop ceiling.

We had this huge air duct that split the room along the house's main support beam. We were planning a drop ceiling for most of the space but needed a way to deal with this ductwork.

We decided to use 2x2 to construct a frame for a soffit. We had to stick build it on the floor and raise it into place because of the lally column. We weren't sure if this would work at first, but it secured to the ceiling joists easily and worked like a charm.

Here you can see it raised into place. This was definitely a 2 man job - Thanks to Sean Kelley for helping hoist this sucker up. You can also see the other soffit around the air return against the wall.

In this space we couldn't go all the way to the wall because of the water main. We decided to frame around and put in supports for a built-in bookshelf. Mo's father had recently cleaned out his law office and we salvaged an old bookcase from the office. The plan was to paint it, add beadboard to the back and trim it out in this space so it looked like a true built in.

My neighbor Bob stopped over to help with the staircase framing. He has a lot of experience so it was a huge help on this tricky part of the job!

Framing out the staircase was tricker than i expected. A lot of interesting angles to deal with here.

The electrical wiring in the corner here made it especially tricky to pull the stairway framing together with the soffit. We were able to tuck the cables under and create a nailer for the blueboard to hang on.

Next it was time to rough in the electrical. My neighbor Jay helped out with this. We added 12 outlets and brought the electrical cables up into the ceiling cavities in preparation for the recessed lighting when it was ready. This circuit was run from a new breaker switch added to the main panel.

More Electrical....

I had plans for hanging a new TV on the wall and wanted to keep the cable box in the other room. I wanted to run a 50 ft. HDMI cable and single CAT5 up above the drop ceiling and down to the TV. In preparation for this, i added this piece of PVC pipe to act as a conduit for the cable. Once the wall was up i could just drop the cable down this pipe and it would be right where i needed it.

I cut a hole in this back box and slide the PVC into it. The back box is positioned right behind where i want the TV. We also added a power outlet at this height.

Next it was time for insulation. I used R-13 kraft faced batts. Because we had spaced our studs at 16 inches on-center, these batts fit perfectly in place. I used a stape gun to secure the edges against the studs. Cutting these to length was easy - just a utility knife and a 2x4 was all that was needed

Fully insulated and ready to go!

I had to cut holes in the R-13 to poke the electrical boxes through. Once i did i just sealed the opening around the box with foil tape.

I also taped off the seams with foil tape to prevent cold air from getting in.

In the area behind where the new built-in bookshelf would go i used 1-inch rigid polystyrene to insulate the wall.

Finally the room was ready for the blueboard and Plaster. This i hired out to professionals and boy am i glad i did! Hanging the blueboard was a ton of work. They also used metal corner bead on all of the outside corners.

More blueboard and tape pictures.

You can see the soffit boarded up nicely here.

Here's a picture after the plaster had set but before i had primed and painted everything. You can't tell in the picture, but the plaster set as smooth as glass. They did an amazing job! Something i definitely could not have done....

More detail here of the great plaster work

Here is the stairway with plaster up.

Next it was time to hang the ceiling. This drop ceiling by Armstrong was easy to use but it still took a long time. It took me two full 8 hour days to hang the entire space. The grid snaps together fairly easily and uses wires attached to the ceiling joists for added support. I hung mine with only 2 inches clearance (against the manufacturer recommendation) to gain extra ceiling height. Really happy with the result but this made it VERY trick to get all the tiles in place!

Positing the cans took a bit of planning when laying out the grid. The center of the tile had to fall in between the joists so that the lights would have space to sit.

I used 6-inch recessed lighting on this project.

I used the Armstrong Sahara ceiling tiles. They have a bit of a sandy feeling texture to them and are reall sturdy. Here is one with the hole cut-out for the light fixture.

These were pretty easy to cut with just a utility knife and the lights came with the circle template.

I forgot all about this old light fixture! It had to come down before this tile would fit into place. It was okay to just remove it and cap the box with a metal plate to close it off.

After the ceiling was done it was time to paint and do trim. Here you can see the wall is already painted (toasted cashew) and i've started nailing in the baseboard. I started trying to mitre every corner but because of the slight unevenness in the floor it was near impossible. I settled on using the cap pieces to make the transitions a little easier. They ended up working pretty good and looked great when everything was done.