Posted by: rdobson | May 20, 2012

Cabinets and Trim

Cabinets and Trim

Last weekend we got all the plywood (5 sheets total, Honda mini-van FTW!) and supplies for doing the cabinets. After putting in the carpet, we got inspired to try and tackle this part of it rather quickly. It’s not done yet, but we made huge progress in the past week. I ripped all the material and planned it all out last weekend. Julie spent the week staining and finishing all the material (she did an awesome job!) so that I could do the install this weekend.

The most amazing thing is that there is really only one part that I screwed up and need to go back to correct. At the last-minute, I decided to drop the height of the bookcases at the ends about 6.25″ so that I could wrap the crown around the top of the bookcase instead of ending the crown and then starting it again. Here is a better shot of what I am talking about:

I did this by boxing in the area above the top shelf, or ‘header’. The problem is that I screwed up the small piece I inserted to create the header on the other end which is why if you look at the picture at the top of this post, you’ll notice that corner doesn’t have crown yet. Overall, a very minor issue. Not like cutting a piece too short or splitting a piece.

I have three shelves that will sit in the bookcases, but I needed to special order the adjustable shelve brackets so that will need to wait until the shipment arrives. I looked everywhere for Knape and Vogt shelve supports but couldn’t find them at any of the big box stores. Really frustrating… so I ordered them online at The Hardware Hut. I really like these types of supports because the actual support locks in place and can support a ton of weight.

The kids are pumped and Julie seems excited to be able to unload some of the storage stuff onto the shelves to free up space in the laundry room. I still have to do a lot of finishing trim, get 2 sets of doors for the middle set of cabinets to hide all the electronics, and caulk the crown moulding in preparation for paint, but overall it was a very successful weekend and the end of the basement project is in sight. Woot!

First set of electronics show up tomorrow and we are now on the hunt for some furniture!

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Posted by: rdobson | May 6, 2012

Carpet, at last!

One step closer

After weeks of trying to figure out what to do with the basement floor, we finally made a call and finished it off yesterday. Our original plan was to have carpet installed by Home Depot, but after we found some ‘environmental’ concerns during the install/inspection process, we needed to consider alternatives.

Out of all the options, we ended up going with 2′ carpet squares made by Simply Seamless. It has a decent carpet pad on it and the quality of the actual carpet is a step up from what we were going to get installed by HD. The installation went pretty quick and between Friday night and a few hours Saturday morning, we got it all wrapped up. The room now has a definite ‘finished’ feeling to it. I have some minor moulding work to finish up and then there is the big cabinet system on the back wall, but it feels good to have the basement now in a state that is ready for daily use.

You can see the vinyl tiles we had to put down because the previous home owner had removed a bunch of the 9″x9″ tiles and just left the concrete. There was a lip between the tiles and the concrete that could be felt through the carpet when we put down a test piece.

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Posted by: rdobson | March 18, 2012

Bet you thought I gave up

Finally got back to it

After taking a break from basement work for 2 weeks (1 week was due to a work trip), I got back to it yesterday. Most of the remaining work is finish carpentry and touch-ups. Unfortunately, this is one area that takes longer than the others. With framing, electrical, drywall, etc. you are building the foundation that you can cover up or deal with mistakes without significant effort. When it comes to the trim and detail work, I go pretty slow because this is the first area people usually notice. How tight are the miters in the casing, how does the crown look, etc.

So here is what I got done yesterday:

  • All baseboard is done. Ready for carpet (most likely after we get back from spring break).
  • All crown that can go up without doing the front cabinets is completed.
  • Window is framed and it’s only missing one small piece of casing which I stained last night. This should be done this week.
  • Hand railing was put up so the stairs are complete.
  • Casing for all doors is now done.
  • New light at the top of the stairs was purchased and installed yesterday.
  • Work on some of the final moulding surrounding the outside of the staircase was started but not finished.
  • Julie finally stopped complaining about me not doing anything in the basement for a day (major accomplishment!)

I have the projector picked out and have looked at the electronics side of things for the past couple of days. I’m thinking that the initial setup will have the projector, receiver with 5.1, Xbox, and an apple tv (jailbroken to run xbmc). This will provide me the ability to play all the digital content I already have, plus use the Xbox as a Blu-ray player in addition to a gaming platform. For me, this is the payoff of all the work in the basement. Just need to find some guys to come over and break in the new system with me in April…

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Posted by: rdobson | February 8, 2012

Bye Bye Comcast, f-you very much

Feb 8th, 2012

Remember this day. It is the day that the Dobson’s quit cable. We cut the cord! We broke the shackles! We tasted freedom from ‘THE CABLE COMPANY’ for the first time since before I got my first apartment in college.

We’ll probably be signing back up in a few months or when the girls and Julie get tired of not having it, but it’s fun and exciting for the moment and I loved being able to tell the Comcast lady (who was pretty rude) that I didn’t want or need her service and was cancelling. Felt SOOOOO good.

So here is the breakdown of where we started and what we ended up with.

Start:

  • (Comcast/Xfinity) Preferred digital cable package + DVR + HD channels + 12 Mb/s internet + Unlimited local phone = $180 / month
  • (AT&T) 2 cell phones with family call plan + data plans + unlimited text = $150 / month
  • Total: $330 / month

Where we will be by the end of the week:

  • (AT&T) 3 cell phones with family call plan + 2 data plans + unlimited text + 12 Mb/s = $178 / month
  • Total: $178 / month + $400 initial investment (3 month payback, $1824 savings per year)

Cable

We ditched this totally. For content, we are going with a combination of HD OTA using the antenna I posted about last year, Amazon prime streaming, the library, and some other content that I am not at liberty to state how I get… We may have to sign up for Netflix or Hulu Plus if content becomes an issue.

For distribution to the end devices (TVs, PCs, iPad, iPhones), I made a few purchases today to make this transition easier.

  • A NAS with a 2 GB HD for now so I don’t have to worry about the computer being on to stream all the video (Synology DS212j).
  • An HD Homerun dual tuner streaming TV box made by SiliconDust. I connect the OTA antenna to this baby and it will stream the HD video to any device on my network, including my desktop PC which I will configure as a DVR and have it record shows to the NAS above which is then accessible from XBMC running on my Apple TV. Got it???? I know, it sounds complicated… but this will give us a very similar experience when watching TV to what we had when we had cable. At least for the major networks.

Phone

I setup a third cell line on our family plan with AT&T for $9.99/month and got a non-smartphone for free with the new line of service. This new phone will have our existing home number transferred to it. I picked up the phone today and it should be switched over in a couple of days.

The one complaint Julie had with this plan was that she would miss the ‘feeling’ of having a home phone and have to run about the house looking for the cell phone when someone called. To eliminate this, I found a set of cordless home phones that have a feature called link-to-cell. You sync your cell via bluetooth with the base unit and then any calls you receive or make are through your cell phone. VERY COOL. Panasonic KX-TG7645M

Internet

The one service that is essential to us now… over the cable or home phone. So here, getting the fastest connection for the cheapest cost is what I was after. Comcast wouldn’t make me any deals and wanted $45/month for 12Mp/s. AT&T offered me a new customer deal of $24/month at the same speed for a year. Done. I figure this is probably the one service I will be switching back and forth between Comcast and AT&T if I need to in order to get the best rate. It’s pretty painless to switch and I don’t use my ISP for anything other than a pipe (no email or any other service).

Wow, big changes for the family…. I’ll keep you posted. Maybe this will force us to spend more time playing games as a family or watching only the things we really really want to see. Either way, it can’t be that bad and it’s a fun experiment. I can’t believe we don’t have cable. So pumped!! (the only major issue is what happens when football starts up again… hmmmm)

And no… there is no basement update. Still working on moulding. Grrr.

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Posted by: rdobson | January 29, 2012

Painting, DONE.

One step forward

We finished the last of the painting today. Cottage white on the ceiling and projection wall, Organic field on everything else. We got the Behr Ultra paint which is the primer + paint in one. The coverage was less than stellar and we still needed two coats even after 1-2 coats of drywall primer. Julie did a great job doing the detailed work on the ceiling/wall edge along the stairway. Using my father-in-law’s adjustable ladder made the work far easier and less treacherous.

The girls got their first lesson on electrical today by helping me wire up the outlets. Things are starting to come together and we spent an hour cleaning everything up after the electric was done. The girls actually went back down there after we were done to play for a couple of hours. Amazing how quickly they want to take advantage of the new space.

One of the things I had to take care of today was the bottom drywall edge. When we initially hung the drywall, I wanted it to be 1/2-1″ short so there would be plenty of space between the bottom of the drywall and the floor. We were able to get this on most of the sheets, but a few were pretty tight so I went around with a dremel and cut off the bottom 1/2″ to make sure. If (when) it gets wet on the floor, the last thing I want is water working it’s way up the drywall.

Moulding and Trim

Before we get the carpet installed, I need to finish the trim work and get the room prepped. Not only will this cut down on the mess that will get made installing the trim, but it will mean that when the carpet goes down, I can put the done stamp on this part of the project.

We knew when we put up the drywall that we were going to use some type of crown which saved me from having to finish all those inside corners around the whole room. We have oak trim through most of the house and Julie loves it, so our first thought was a 3 1/4″ oak crown with oak base and casing. In theory, this would work great. As we started to work through it in more detail, some issues arose.

  1. The ceiling isn’t perfectly flat (I know… I know… my fault) so when you put the crown up against it, you will see gaps. These small gaps are no issue if you are using a primed, white crown because you can just fill the gaps with caulk and they disappear. With oak, you cannot hide these very easily and when you do, it’s obvious.
  2. If we go with a white, primed crown, base and casing, how will that look if the cabinet system I am going to build is in oak? Will the basement be the only room in the house that doesn’t have oak as the primary trim material?
  3. How will all the trim work around the cabinet system that doesn’t exist yet? I do NOT want to have to take down and recut a lot of pieces once I build it. I just don’t have the time to do it now so I’m going to have to really pay attention to this. Probably means I’ll have to fully design the cabinet to make sure it will work out.

What we have agreed on for now, is to have white, primed crown (painted same color as ceiling) and oak base and casing. Mixing these was not ideal, but it does solve most of our issues. We searched the internet to see if anyone else had sought out advice on a similar topic. Only a few hits were found and the consensus was that it was allowed, but more common in Europe (Spain) than the US. So what do you think? Below is a picture that shows roughly how it will look.

Oh, and I think I am going to have to build at least the base of the cabinet system before the carpet gets installed. I do not want the carpet below the cabinets. If it ever gets wet and has to be removed, I do not want to mess with the cabinets at all. Awesome… add it to the list!

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