2 week vacation

So that’s it… I’m not going to get anymore done in the basement before I got back to work tomorrow. It’s been a crazy two weeks. The picture in the upper right was taken on Jan 8th, the picture at the bottom is from today. I tried to keep a similar camera angle. The second collage is from the opposite angle.

Some stats (for those that are so inclined):

  • 8 trips to Home Depot, 1 to Lowes and 1 to Menards (although I didn’t buy anything here and it was a 10 min run in… does that still count?)
  • 11 sheets of 5/8″ drywall, 23 sheets of 1/2″
  • 18 gallons of mud
  • 4 gallons of primer
  • ~1600 drywall screws (1 1/4″, 1 5/8″ and 2″ combined)
  • 10 outlets, 6 cans, and 2 dimmers
  • 1 rental (drywall sander)
  • Number of days I worked by myself (or just with Julie and no outside help): 3
  • Number of days above 40 degrees: 8
  • Number of days above 50 degrees: 2
  • Total snowfall: ~10″ (two major storms)

I really do owe a lot to all the friends and family that helped me. Without them, I would still be hanging drywall or finishing framing. Thanks to my father and mother-in-law, my Dad, Tom, Craig T., Nadeem, and Julie. I have learned a lot from this experience and I appreciate the conversations and time spent with everyone as much as the actual construction. Julie made a lot of lunches for various sized work crews and did a great job putting up with everything.

What’s next?

The last steps will take me a few weeks to complete. I was pushing hard to get painting completed so I could get the carpet in quickly. Putting the done stamp on it would be really nice, but I think that might be rushing this last stage a little. I decided to finish all the trim work before carpet so I am planning on completing the painting this upcoming weekend (just the walls remain now) and then spend another week doing the trim. Hopefully the carpet will be good to go the second week in Feb. This means no super bowl in the basement :(, but this will coincide with another experiment Julie and I are going to try out: NO CABLE! We have discussed it and are ready to give it a go soon, but that is another post…

Here are some updated pictures I took earlier today after we finished priming all the drywall and put the final coat of paint on the ceiling. Enjoy!