Last night I finished up the access panel I wanted to put in for the valves for the bathroom area. That turned out pretty good. I also cut two holes in the wall between the utility room and the main room. I will put return air vents in those areas as soon as everything is painted. I also hung the french doors in the main room. I want to tweak them a little more before I can say that part is finished. After they have been tweaked I can then get them primed and painted. I hope they turn out looking really nice. I hope to be able to get a coat of mud on the bathroom and hopefully also the hallway area tonight. That is all that is left now. Get the mud and tape up. It would be nice to get the entire main room, bathroom and hallway areas all setup and drying with a first coat by the end of this weekend. Then I can start the finish coat next week and maybe even get it sanded and ready for primer.

Last night after dinner I cleaned up the utility room a bit and then pull all of the stuff from under the stairs out. The three pieces I put up turned out OK, but not my best work. I just wanted to be finished. I have a few small pieces left I need to throw out in this weeks garbage. I have one area I need to build a box and then cover with some drywall and put an access panel on it. Just want to clean up the look of the area I put in the valves for the bathroom downstairs. I am also thinking about how I want to treat the opening next to the electrical panel. I may just leave that alone. After I build that small box our around the valves. I can throw the rest of the drywall away and then spend most of my time getting the taping going. Think I will start on the bathroom first. Try to get one room finished at a time. Since there is so much work left in the bathroom I figure I should get that going first. Then after the first coat is on in the bathroom I figure I should try to get most of the main room finished also. Move on to the utility room and then go back to the office and try to clean that up and get the last coat on it. Then back to the bathroom for the last coat hopefully and keep doing that until I am happy with the finish. I have a big 5 gallon bucket of primer ready to get on the walls. Like I said, I really want to get on the bathroom so I can put the cabinet and sink in and go get the toilet and get that all set also. I then need to figure out what color I want to paint the walls and what I want to do for the floor treatment.

On sunday I worked on the basement for a few hours. I finished up the last two walls in the basement and fixed a few other problems. I have on last area to finish. I want to use the last of the sheets of drywall under the basement stairs. I have 3 sheets left and believe I can use all three on the stairs area. It will take me a few minutes to clear that area out and clean it up and then can get the rest of the drywall hung. At the same time I want to organize that area and clean it up. I hope to put a bunch of stuff away and clean up the utility room. I need to build out an access panel over near the utility sink and after that is finished I will try to get as far as I can on the mud. That should be the last thing I really need to get working on. I will keep plugging away at the wiring mess, hope to get that clean in a week or so. I want to get the taping done so I can get the bathroom all plumbed in and primed. I then can start to think about and plan out the bathroom floor. After I get all the taping finished I need to start pricing out the carpet and get the gas stove installed. At that point I will need to trim out the room and get paint on the walls and the basement project should be finished. What to do next 🙂

I started working on getting all of the data cables organized. What a mess. I finished up attaching that last piece of drywall and then mounted the punch down blocks. I started putting the new jacks in each outlet upstairs. I was able to get 2 jacks completed and all set. Have about three more to go for upstairs and then I will start on the basement jacks. The basement should go much faster. There are more of them but they should go very quickly. I want to label each jack when I am finished then because I only have a 16 port switch and will not be able to plug all cables in at the same time. I took some more pictures of the basement early this morning. You can see them here.

I started out after dinner checking the shower in the basement bathroom to make sure it is not leaking. Everything seems to be great there. No problems, I think I can close up that whole wall now. Will be fun but hope to get it soon. I wanted to put an outlet near the furnace hotwater heater area, so I can plug my dehumidifier in. I was thinking about running it down from the ceiling but in the end, the cord from the dehumidifier would not reach so I put it on the wall behind the hotwater heater. It will be nice to have something over on that wall now. Took a bit of doing and hooked it into the same circuit as the projector plug. Should not be much of a load on that circuit at all. Tested and made sure it worked and then moved on. Since I had the circuit panel open I went ahead and made measurements and cut the piece of drywall I needed to put in there. I made the cuts and it turned out pretty close. It is up and looking good. I need to trim one corner a bit so it sits a bit nicer against the cement wall but the piece is up and looking good. Fit nicely around the circuit panel and left about a 2 or 3 inch opening on the right hand side of the panel so I can work on the coax cables and cat5 cables if needed. Not the cleanest look I could have gotten but the way the cables are run into the house I needed to leave that area open. Should be just fine. Was able to get all of the coax and cat5 hooked back up. Well all of the connections that needed to be hooked up. Needed to get cable modem back up and running and hooked up all phone cords to get sbc line working again and the IP phone (bat phone) up and running again. Now tonight I hope to clean up the rest of the wiring and get it all neat and punched down and finished up so I can move on. It is nice to come into the room now and see a nice neat corner finally. Will move a few things around and do some cable management with the computer rack in that corner and then put some shelves around that area and call it good. I have 2 more sheets of drywall to put up on the other end of that wall and then have about 2 or 2 1/2 sheets to get on the wall next to it and that will be finished. I need to put a few small pieces around the door coming in to the utility room and then around the stairs area and that will be it. I have 5 or 6 sheets left so I think I may have an extra sheet or two. Will probably try to get those tucked away against a wall in the back for later use. So tonight I really want to clean a few things up and keep moving. The problem is the work left is a bit slow and tedious to finish up. Will take me a few more nights to get it all finished I believe. Hopefully by early next week I will have all the drywall up and will be able to get some of the mudding finished up also.

Worked on the basement for a few hours last night. I was able to fix the leak for the shower head last night. I will test once again tonight to make sure there is no more dripping when you turn the shower on. Then I can finish up the last few pieces on that wall. I started on the outside wall that is behind the furnace and water heater. Was able to get two pieces up last night. The one behind the furnace is up. Was not sure if I was going to be able to get it in there but it just fit. I have about 3 pieces left on that wall. I cleaned up the rest of the network cables. I just have to punch them down on the punch blocks now. I want to get the last piece of drywall on that wall so I have a clean surface to mount the punchdown block on. I hope tonight to have time to get this hard piece up and all set. It will close most of the wires into the wall, with just a few holes to access areas I need to have access to. Don’t think I will close in above the electrical panel and also on the right side of the panel. Will need to have access to those areas if I ever need to run more electrical or other cables. I still have a little bit of static on the phone line. I need to get that back on a protected circuit so that hum goes away. Otherwise I will have to play around with the cables a bit more to see where I am getting the hum from.