Man is this work going slow. I have got to start working on the basement at least one hour a night. I will never get the drywall finished. I have almost all of the corners set and ready to sand. I believe if I can get another 2 hours or so I will be ready to start sanding the hallway and then do a little touch up and then will be ready to prime. I just do not feel like heading down there and working on it lately. It is going to get worse also. Starting to warm up a bit and will want to spend more time outside doing stuff very soon.

I started on the hallway in the basement again. Put a second and hopefully final coat on many of the seams and a few corners. I still have a few more corners and all the ceiling corners to get. My hand was killing me after about a hour and a half. I tried the topper mud this time and it seems to work pretty good. I went and picked up a bucket of the lightweight stuff today and will try that when I have gone through the topper bucket. I use about half a bucket of the topper bucket already. I have about 1 and a half buckets of the general use mud and now a bucket of the lightweight mud. That should get me a little way. I figure I will use at least a bucket if not the bucket and half of general purpose mud on the utility room getting all the joints taped. I still have at least 2 or 3 more buckets to put on the main room bath and hallway. I think I am going to try to finish the hallway first. Get primer on it and see what I think. Then do the bathroom and get primer on it. Then the office and get primer on it. The last room I will finish will be the main room. Like always, I am not moving anywhere near the speed I would like to be moving on this project. I hope I can get it done by the end of may so I can get the projector before the end of the rebate period and get that put up and start using the basement. Can’t wait to be able to hook up all the speakers and stuff and watch gladiator in 7.1 dts on a 110 inch screen. Man that will be so awesome. That keeps me working on this damn project.

Well Menard’s finally got a shipment of the paper face inside corner pieces I needed to finish up the main room. I bought 12 more 8 foot lengths and hope to get down to the basement tonight to finish up the main room corners. I will then get a second coat of mud on some more joints and hope to have the main room almost ready for sanding after this week. I need to get a second coat on the hallway and finish up the second coat on the bathroom. If I work on the basement 1 hour to 2 hours every evening this week I think I can have all rooms ready for sanding by this weekend. Give them a good sanding and then touch up any problems and maybe by the end of this month I will have primer on the walls. Oh I need to get the knock down ceiling thing going to. I have found a few guns that will shoot the mud on the ceiling for the knock down ceiling. I just need to do a little more reading on how to actually do the knock down ceiling. Then I plan to practice on one of the extra sheets of drywall I have and then I will go at it. When I get that finished I will be ready to put primer on all rooms.

I went down stairs after dinner last night and setup to try out the new palm stander. It ended up working great. I hooked up the new attachment so I could hook the sander to the shop vac. Plugged in the sander and tried it without the vac to see what it will do. It was sending a bunch of dust down the wall. Not bad at all. I hooked the shop vac up and man did it get noisy quick. I think I can deal with the small amount of airborne dust and the pile at the base of the wall. Not bad at all. I was able to sand an area that was about 3 feet by 3 feet and I only found one small spot I will have to touch up. Almost all of the butt joint have 2 coats on them already so I may be ready to sand most of those areas. I really need to get going on the ceiling corners and room corners to get 2 coats on those and then hopefully that will be enough that I can sand and then just touch up. I think I will sand a bit more tonight to get a better feeling and then I will know better what other areas I need to work on or touch up before I really start to sand. I got a 5 gallon bucket of top coat instead of general purpose this time. I hope that works out better. I am thinking I may have enough mud now to finish of the main area of the basement. I will probably need to get one or two more buckets for the utility room and garage when I go to work on those areas.

Well had two of my college room mates up over the weekend and messed around a bit and caught up on what we are doing and also did a little mudding in the basement. Here are some new pictures of the basement. Did not work on the hallway or bathroom at all. I hope to get down there and work on at least the hallway tonight. I really need to just work on one room until it is finished. Figure I should work on the hallway so it will be finished and then work on the bathroom so it will be finished. Then I may start on the back room again to finish that room altogether also. Shawn said he just got primer on his basement this weekend. I can’t wait to see how nice his basement is looking. I just bought a porter cable 1/4 sheet palm sander at sears last night. Been meaning to get one and figure it may come in handy on the drywall sanding. I will give it a try tonight and see how it works. not sure if I should have this 1/4 sheet sander or one of the random orbital circular sanders. Both have the collection port so you can hook a shop vac to it. Will give this one a try and see how it works out.

Went downstairs and used up the rest of the mud in bucket number 5. I have another bucket and plan to get a new one at lunch today. It is amazing how fast you can use a full bucket up. I worked on a few corners in the bathroom and another two corners in the main room. I then finished up a long seam in the main room and a few joints in the bathroom. Would have kept going but didn’t really feel like prying a new bucket open. Hope to get back down there tonight and try to finish up the other side of the corners tonight. It should would be nice to be able to get that bathroom ready to be sanded this weekend.

I was able to use up almost 2 buckets of mud over the weekend. I have the bathroom and hallway totally taped and ready for a second coat of mud. The office has 2 or 3 coats of mud and is ready for the final coat and then just touch up after that. The main room has all of the butt joints finished and most of the nail holes filled. I have a few corners to finish up and about 3 long seems to finish. I hope after getting some more mud and corner pieces tonight I will be able to finish up on the first coat of mud in the main room also. I do not plan on working on the utility room until I finish most of the other rooms or have nothing to do on the other rooms. Feels good to see most of the first coat on. I put a very light second coat on the bathroom also. Hope to get another coat on the bathroom and hallway tonight or tomorrow and see where that brings me. I am hoping that I only need to put 3 or 4 coats at most on all of the rooms. Then a light sanding and then ready for primer.