Bedroom renovation progress

This room had a bad reno done by the previous owner. He ripped out the old plaster, and replaced it with a horrible drywall job, and sub-standard electrical work. The drywall on the ceiling was hung the wrong way, and some of the joints were hanging between joists. He ripped out the closet on the dining room side to make one large closet. He filled in the floor with some door trim, and a hockey stick. There were no closet doors, and he just stuck some carpet to cover his handiwork on the floor. The vapour barrier didn't have any acoustic sealant, and was taped with packing tape. The insulation job wasn't great either, so I tore it back to the studs. It took longer than I though, a couple days to do the demo.

Here I am doing the new electrical. He had the wires almost at the bottom, and chiseled the corners, with no protection plates. The room had 3 circuits too, when one is sufficient for one room.

Here it is down to the studs. I couldn't get he electrical through the corners, so I ran it across the top.

Here we are with 2 coats of mud. I need to get a new sill for the window, since the previous owner cut it off, to make it easier to install drywall. I have to replace all the trim, since it was all missing. We're going to build a bench along the window, and bookcases on the sides.



Here's the closet filled back in. We're going to build a build-in for the closet, with drawers on the bottom, and doors on the top. The closet on the dining room side is going to be a mini office. We're going to have the computer in there. Hopefully we'll be able to prime tomorrow, or Monday. We're planning wallpaper on the back wall opposite the door, and we're matching colours from the wallpaper for the walls and ceiling. We need to sand and varnish the floor as well, maybe next weekend.

Working on the Workshop

Here's the stairwell to the shop. I finished drywalling it, and it's got a coat of paint on it now. The top is plaster that isn't in very good condition. I'm going to have to use plaster washers to resecure it. I'm going to trim it out with rough cedar, to give it kind of a rough look.

I've been drywalling the shop, and moved the bench I use for power tools. The table top is cut to fit in this niche. It's attached to a ledger at the back, and to the cabinet. I'm going to build shelves on both sides, and above. Hopefully it's going to be more organized.

Here's the wall on the other side, that I haven't finished yet. I have to change some of the plumbing so I can finish drywalling the one wall. I ran out of Tuck Tape too, and I didn't feel like going out in the snow again. I'm going to build shelves, and places to hand all my hand tools, like chisels and planes.

There was a wall build about 2' in front of the chimney, so I removed that, and continued the wall along beside the chimney. The 2' was kind of wasted space, so I reclaimed it for the shop.

This shows the corner by the stairwell. We're going to store paint under the stairs, to free up more space in the shop. It's separated from the furnace now, so hopefully less dust in the furnace. I want to get a better dust collection system than the shop-vac, eventually.

It been taking a long time to work on the shop, there's no place to put everything while working, so it's been a juggling act. Hopefully I can start on the shelving and organizing, it'll be nice to finally have some organization.

Basement Walls

This is what the workshop looked like 2 weeks ago.




This is what it looked like a week ago, and how it looks now. At least it's functional again. The walls are insulated, and the cabinet is rehung.

We rented a van on Saturday, to get rid of all the old drywall we had. I had to drive it out to the dump that's further away, and that accept drywall. Did take too long a couple hours maybe. It felt good to get rid of it, and now we have a lot more space in the garage. Then since I had the van, I picked up 12 more sheets of drywall. Hopefully enough to finish the rest of the basement.







Not exactly thrilling photos. It's really hard hanging drywall by yourself, Deb has a deadline, so I did three sheets by myself. You get it in the perfect spot, and juggle the screw gun, and the screws, and by the time you get it all lined up, it slips by the time you go to put a screw in. It's a little frustrating. I'm sure I could have screwed a couple pieces of 2x4 on the wall in the perfect place, and it would have been a lot easier. I guess sometimes it's just easier to struggle. This area is going to be for Deb to do her stained glass work. She's been itching to do some, but the basement has been in complete disarray for quite some time. There's going to be a small powder room wedged in there as well.



I was working on the bottom section, but I broke 2 concrete bits, so I called it a day. I'm drilling in to the concrete, and using galvanized nails with wire, to hold various thicknesses of wood to the insulation. That way, the insulation is continuous on the concrete. I need to get a couple new bits, then I can continue. Hopefully I don't break anymore, they're not cheap.