Well today is the second day that the new bathroom has had pressure and all is good. I checked last night and again this morning to make sure there are no leaks or drips. I can’t find any problems. I plan on running water for a bit tonight and if I do not see any water around the pipes I will go ahead and insulate that wall and then move all the shelving units back against the wall. That job went very smooth. Didn’t know what to expect since it was my first time running new lines to a full bathroom. Quite a few connections and different parts. Seems to have come off without a hitch though.

Well I had a nice long weekend and since I had some more time on my hands I was able to get the last sheets of drywall up. I still have a bit more drywalling to do but I do not have any more drywall at my house. I figure I will need 2 sheets of 5/8ths drywall to finish up the ceiling in the main room. I need 2 sheets for 1/2 inch green board to finish up the bathroom and 12 more sheets of 1/2 inch drywall to finish up the one wall in the utility room. I want to finish just the wall that faces the main room and bathroom. That will help keep some sound from traveling from the utility room into the main living area. I was able to finish up all the plumbing in the bathroom. I sealed the drain in the shower. I hooked up the rest of the pipes to the bathroom and caped off the ends to the sink so I can put drywall up and then cut the caps off and put the valves on when I am ready for the sink. I put the valve on for the toilet since I have the drywall in place where the toilet will go. I hooked in two valves so I can turn the water off all together to that room and then re-ran the water lines to the utility sink so I can drywall that whole wall. I will have a small hole where the water lines run to the sink and where the drain for the sink is and I will have a small hole to access the two shut off valves and a small boxed area where I will cover up the area where the pipes stick out of the wall. Had a bit of a problem when I turned the water on for the bathroom though. I finished up all the connections on all the lines and then turned the water back on to the house. Let all the water run for a bit so I could get all the air out of the pipes. Opened up the hot water heater valves to let that run a bit, got all air out of the lines. I then opened the valves to the bathroom area. As soon as I did that the shower just started to spray. Every time I turned the water on for the utility sink the shower would start up. That stumped me for about 10 minutes. I figured that since I had both the hot and cold water on for the utility sink the hot water would flow back through the cold line into the shower head. I had hooked the show valve up a bit backwards. I just have to reverse the handle and all is good again. I just had the valve a full 180 degrees the wrong way. A quick fix. The one that worried me was the cold water valve I had put in so I could turn the water off to this area. It had a leak. I really didn’t want to have to cut it out and put in a new one. That would take me about 2 hours to cut out, get a new one and put it in. I went and got a wrench and took it apart and tighten it back up and the leak was gone. So tonight I will check for leaks again and if there are no more leaks I will start to insulate and then move everything back to that wall and keep working on the rest of the basement. I hung the door to the bathroom on sunday also. I will hang the french doors on the main room and start to trim around the windows. After I do those two things I am out of materials. I need to get the drywall and at that point I will be as far as I can get without having the mudder come in and do his thing. I need to get that scheduled soon. I also need to pick out tile for the bathroom and also get the gas stove ordered and installed. After those three things are finished I will be ready to paint and then get the carpet ordered. Amazing that this project is almost complete. I will be very happy if this all can be finished by the start of spring. Maybe another 2 or 3 months if everything falls into place.

Well after almost a full week off of work I actually feel pretty good about what I was able to work on in our basement. I only really was able to put two full days into the basement. I actually worked one day and then had travel and what not for the other two days. Monday and tuesday I put at least 8 hours in the basement each day though. I was able to get most of the drywall up in the bathroom. I built a new wall for the shower area and put in the shower and finished all the plumbing to the shower. Had to mix up a batch of cement so I could fill in the hole I had to make to get all the plumbing setup correctly for the drain in the shower. I have almost all the water lines finished for the sink, toilet and shower. I just have to finish up about 3 more feet of line for the hot and cold water and it will be all set and working. It will take me another 3 or 4 hours to do the rest though. I want to put two hammer arrestors in and then rerun the lines that go to the utility sink on the other side of the bathroom wall so I can drywall most of that wall on the utility rooms side. That will take a a bit to do. Then I just have to hook into the main water line and cap off the old 1/2 lines that ran to the utility sink. I also have to valves I want to put in so I can turn off the water to that whole bathroom from the utility room if I wanted to. I should only have two lines coming out of the wall for the utility sink and then two a small area at the top of the wall that I might box over and put an access panel over that will give me access to the valves and cover two lines that stick out of the wall. everything else should be covered by drywall. Hopefully I can get back to that room in the next few days. Maybe this weekend I will be able to finish up that bathroom. After that room is finished up I can finish up the last wall in the main room and at that point I will need to get about 12 more sheets of 1/2 inch drywall for the utility room wall I want to finish and 3 sheets of 5/8th to finish the main room ceiling and 2 sheets of green 1/2 inch to finish the new wall in the bathroom. At that point I can start the trim work and get the windows all trimmed out along with the doors and trim at the bottom of the walls. The rest is up to other people I believe. I need to get quotes for mudding the whole area and need to get a quote to get a gas stove installed. Need to pick out carpet and tile. I plan to tile the bathroom myself and also paint everything myself. So plenty to do still but getting close to finishing. If I can get all of the little things finished by the end of january I may be able to use this room by march or april if I can get carpet and stove installed in a timely manner. I will try to get a few pictures up on the site soon.

Well last night I spent almost 2 hours at home depot and Menards looking at plumbing stuff and cabinets and what not for the bathroom. bought a few parts. Need to get one more part and I think I can plumb up the sink, toilet and shower. I plan on picking up the shower tonight. I need to pick out the toilet and then pick up the counter top and cabinet. I plan to get a full counter top/sink setup. Should be very nice. Looking at almost 500 dollars for the sink and cabinet. I need to decide what to do with the space on the other side of the shower. Since we are only putting a standup shower in that bathroom I have 5 feet to deal with and only will be using about 32 inches for the shower itself. I think I will build a wall to close in the shower and then have to decided if I want to put cabinets in the rest of the area there or maybe try to build a closet there. Will have to take some measurements. I do not think I can fit a 24 inch door in that small area so I may need to just put cabinets in there. So it is coming together. I really hope to be able to get all the parts and pieces in the house this week and then over the weekend or next week get the shower in position and all set and plumbed. Get the toilet all set, plumbed and ready to be mounted when the flooring is finished. Get the rest of the drywall up and then mount the cabinet and plumb the sink in and get that working. I know it is alot to do but I think I can get it all done as long as I can find all the parts I need. I am a bit worried about the drain for the shower. I also need to find mounting hardware for the toilet. Want to bolt that down into the cement floor, not just to the toilet flange. Many parts to buy, hopefully I won’t spend over 1 grand on the bathroom stuff.

Over this past weekend I finished up all the walls I can finish at this time. I put up a few pieces of drywall in the bathroom. I need to have someone over for a few hours to help me finish up the ceiling in the bathroom. I have to wait to put up the drywall on the last wall in the big room until I get the shower and the cabinets for the bathroom. I hope to go get the shower and maybe even cabinets, sink and toilet this week. I may even start putting tile down if I can get all the parts and pieces I need. If all goes smooth and I can get everything finished this weekend, I may be tiling the bathroom next week. Probably not but I can try. Once I get the shower and other stuff in the bathroom I can finish the last wall in the main room and put the door on the bathroom and the french door on the main room. I really need to get the gas stove on order and find the mudding guy so I can get those in the works.

Saturday morning I got up just after jenny got up to head in to the hospital. Got taylor up and watched a little tv. Put on some old clothes and headed to the basement. I finished up the ibeam in the center of the main room and then finished up the pole and cut the holes for the speakers wiring and ethernet and also the power outlet. That was about all I did on saturday. Sunday I got up about the same time and headed back downstairs. I worked on the large wall this time. Worked until about 3 pm. I was able to finish up one end of the wall and was able to put a full row of drywall along the bottom of that wall and the wall closest to the main door coming into the room. So now I just have to put two pieces of drywall on the large wall and I will be finished with that wall and two and a half pieces of drywall on the other wall. The problem is I do not want to put drywall over the two windows until I frame them out with the finished pine around the window. I want to get it all trimmed out before I put the drywall up so I can cut the drywall to the correct edge. Then all I have to do is put trim around the window and both of those areas will be finished. I need to more the green board into the bathroom and put a few pieces up soon. I may even go get the shower this week. Then I can finish up the last wall also. Things are coming together for sure. The room actually has a good echo going on now and is starting to look like a room.

Well I have put all the 5/8th inch drywall up now. It is nice to see the stacks of drywall at the end of the basement getting smaller and now there is only one stack. I estimated pretty good I feel. I need 2 or 3 more sheets of drywall and I will have the ceiling finished. Better to have not enough than have to many I guess. Will start on the walls now. I have one whole wall ready to drywall and the other one has some drywall stacked up against it. The third wall I can drywall part of it but will have to wait to finish it because I need to get the shower in and that requires taking the door apart so I can fit it in. Still plenty of work to do but I like that the ceiling is almost complete. Hopefully tonight or tomorrow I can finish up the drywall on the ibeam and support pole in the center of the basement. That will make things look much better also I think.

Last night after dinner I went down and worked on getting some more drywall up. I ended up getting three sheets up by myself. Man am I sore today. Kind of amazed I was able to put 3 sheets up on the ceiling by myself. Only came close to dropping a sheet once. That jig I made to hold the sheets up to the ceiling for me works great. Would not be able to do it by myself if I did not make that. I took some new pictures of the basement and posted them here. Plan to put up the last 3 sheets I have tonight. After I get these three sheets up I will start on the walls. I will be out of the 5/8th drywall I am putting on the ceiling. Will put up as much 1/2 inch as I can, hopefully until I run out of it. Then will plan to make one more run to the home store to get that rest of the drywall I will need to finish up the basement.

Since I had a long weekend I stated on a few projects in the basement. I was able to finalize all of the speaker wiring late friday evening. I cleaned up the jacks and have them all ready for drywall now. I finished up the last power line that goes the the pole in the center of the basement and also a spot on the ceiling for the projector. I also ran the last conduit up to a spot in the ceiling for the video cables for the projector. I had a friend up sunday and we worked on his “pc” for a bit and also put up two full rows of drywall on the ceiling. A total of 6 full sheets of drywall and two partial sheets at the ends. I now have two more rows to do for the ceiling, they are partial sheets so I think I can put those up by myself. Then the ceiling will be finished. I may have to go buy 2 or 3 more sheets of drywall for the ceiling. Very close in my estimates. We shall see how close I was on the estimates for the bathroom and walls also. The room is starting to take shape now. From the main doorway it looks like the ceiling is almost complete. When you actually walk in though you can tell it is not finished at all. It looking good though. Feeling so much better about it now. So much more work to do but can at least feel the end in sight now.