I finished this project a few months back and haven’t had a chance to share. Here’s a little background to start. We’ve been in the house about 7 years and the basement was considered “finished” when we bought the place. The truth of that is let’s just call it useable for storage . This year with a new baby coming we needed our upstairs office to move downstairs as well as a play area for the kids. So let the fun begin!!! I had done the lighting as well as fixed up the exsisting drop ceiling when we moved in. Of course some of it was popped out so I could do some other work in the meantime. Block foundation, layer of plastic, firring strips nailed through plastic to the block, 1” white bead foam between strips then 1” beaded foam over top and troweled plaster over the whole wall!!! Tore it all out and busted it into contractor bags one wall at a time! Some of the block was painted, some not. Here’s a few of the countless bags of busted foam and plaster.
There was an exsisting wall that split the “finished” area from the utility room area and it had a closet which opened to the “finished” area. My plan was to have it open into the utility area and frame in the original opening. Out comes the sawzall!!! Finished cutting the opening. The rest of the plastic and firring strips all down and walls cleaned and drying
Framed in the closet. patched some nail holes and repainted some rough mortar joints as well as cleaned out the gutter around the floor edge. Laid on a couple coats of drylok
Great job! I know what it's like carrying those contractors bag up stairs. Inevitably 1 will hit a sharp spot and leave sheet rock mess through out house
Glued on 2” ridged foam taped the joints tapcons for the bottom pt plate and framed 2x4 wall in front of the foam
More framing just about done Now to think about the electric. There was one circuit that was feeding the entire room and it was pretty rough. I ended up splitting north and south to two circuits. I even added some coax for a tv and the computer.
Wrapped up the wiring in goes the fiberglass Ran into a snag with a leak I found in the exsisting baseboard heat right where the piece of insulation is left out Then a test section of what we decided to do on the walls. 3/8 B/C grade play wood ripped in strips and nailed up to look like ship lap.
The heating problem remedied. Some of the plywood ripped for the wall. Think I ended up with around 25-27 sheets ripped to 7 1/2” strips. Used a good straight 2x with some grip clamps and trusty circular saw. Starting to take shape The TV wall opening for the back of the tv and the inset shelf for the Blu-ray
A bit of trim work Starting on the floor. We went with a foam rubber puzzle piece type exercise room floor. Went right over the old floor, added cushion, insulation and if there’s ever a water issue will be easy to pull up and dry out! Finished the floor and hung the tv
A few finishing touches... A book shelf That the top doubles as a bar top when playing darts A corner pantry shelf Even whipped up a quick barn door!
The office corner.... found a nice cheap couch for the tv area the door area all wrapped up some of the play area
All said and done started end of February finished beginning of April. I worked on it as much as possible with working my regular job 60 plus during the whole time, so I don’t think it went to bad. I’m happy with how it turned out. We gained around 500 s.f of useable area downstairs and then turned the original office upstairs, with some fresh paint peeled all the trim into the new bedroom with new trim,ceiling fan and doors
Luckily I’ve got a set of bilco doors to take stuff right outside, but still manage to make a mess somehow
Looks great!!!! Have you considered hitting some of your "planks" with a light wash of maybe some earthy tones to suggest weathering? Would add a ton of depth...
We originally were going to do a whitewash but thought it would be to much white. My wife said leave it plain so I didn’t argue! I do think a earth tone of gray would give it a good splash of old wood look though
