November 13 Drywalling Storage/Laundry Section

Spent 1 day drywalling ceiling for storage and laundry section of the basement due to needing to finish plumbing to fit inside of the wall as well as exhaust for the dryer. Walls will have to wait few more weeks.

Time Spent: 2 x 6hr = 12 Hrs Total

November 5 Drywall cont.

November 5

Getting a better hang of drywalling by this time, second space finished with widows still missing.
Almost ready to move to second part of the basement which will be laundry room and storage room.

Cost: $107 (got a box of metal corners, some 6 mil foil for moisture barrier and few other things)
Time: 2x7 hrs total 14 hrs

October 29 & 30 Drywalling of the walls

October 29

I was busy that day so my dad did some work and I did help with hanging the boards on the wall.

We decided to buy 2 more bags of R12 insulation, that should be all that's needed to finish off the basement.

Cost: 2 bags of R12 $80

Time: 1 x 3, 1x6  total  9 hrs.

October 30

Drywalling continued, we managed to finish majority of future media room, nothing unusual or hard about this job except cutting out where outlets will be. Measuring with the board not yet up wasn't working out as when the board is moved around you end up with opening  in different spot then needed.

Option that seemed to work is to make a small opening to pull cables through and before the drywall is fully secured using small drywall hand saw and knife which is pretty time consuming.

Time: 2 x 9 hrs total 18 hrs

October 28th Wall insulation

October 28
Wall insulation before the drywall of the main space.
This went pretty quickly I bought 2 bags of R12 pink insulation and re-used lot of old insulation that was taken down, putting insulation into walls and cutting to size as well as putting moisture barrier 6 mil thickness goes by really quickly. Don't forget to wear gloves and mask it does irritate quiet bit.

Cost of 2 bags: $80
Time spent: 1x4 hrs

Picture was taken after wall was started.

Oct 12 & 21 Drywalling Cont.

Oct 12 and Oct 21

We continued to drywall the ceiling on Oct 21 there was a bit of slow down as unexpected the drywaling of the HVAC system does take bit more time then just flat ceiling.

Also there had to be some time spent on putting insulation on the side as there wouldn't be access to it later by the HVAC section.

Oct 12

Time spent: 2x5hrs: 10 hrs total

Oct 21

Time spent: 2x8: 16 hrs total

Oct 9 Drywall Starting

Oct 9 Drywall Starting

Well finally the day to start putting drywall up.
In general its not too bad, as this one is 30% lighter then regular drywall, although from having my hands up for few hours my back is hurting pretty bad.
Taking under consideration that we did spend some time on putting together support, and I was measuring where the pot lights boxes will be; it was pretty good day. 5 boards are up, many more to go.


Time Spent: 2 x 5hrs=10 hrs

Oct 4 Networking/Media Room wiring

I have decided that best spot for my wireless modem/router will always be my living room.

Unfortunately there is no phone outlet so I have decided to pre-wire one just in case I will change the providers to Bell.

From there I have run 1 cable down to the basement that will be hooked up to 8 port switch to feed up to 8 devices.

- Run total of 200ft of Cat6 cable (thanks to my friend Marcin for sponsoring me that one).

- My friend Pawel installed 5 Cat6 ports on the cable I still have to buy 3 ports Cat3 for phone, and 3 for Cat6 so he can finish hooking them up. He also helped me run the cable and provided good advice in case I drop Rogers :). Thanks Paul, and thank you for the extra wall plates.

I have pre-wired ports for future PC, Projector (just in case), and end of the room where the couches will be. 

- Installed wiring for 7.1 Sound system.

- Installed HDMI cables for Projector, PC, and TV

Wiring totals:

New Cat6 Ports: 8

New Phone Ports: 3

New HDMIs 2x 25ft, + 10ft (for PC, TV and Projector) 6 ports total

New 7.1 wiring for sound

Sorted out existing Cables for Cable TV and External Antenna that had pre-existing cables I'll be installing 4 new F ports.

Time spent: 2 x 7.5 hrs= 15 hrs total (my dad was here and changing spacing from 24 OC to 16 OC for the ceiling drywall, decided to play it safe so there is no sagging over the years)

Cost: ~125 for Cat6 ports, Fports, Cable/Antenna spliters , couple wall plates, and 3 HDMI cables (Best price for HDMI cables so far I have found is at AA Electronics $20 per 25ft high speed and high quality cable, $10 for 6 ft. Also prices for wall plates and Cat6 ports and HDMI ports are best there.)

Not too interesting pictures however here is few.

Cutting drywall for new hook up.

I have finally connected HDMI and Network inside of the wall that runs to my PC in our living room. We had both cables running across the floor.

Looks much better and no more tripping hazard

Mess of cables where the receiver and 8 port switch will sit.

 Convenient power outlet, HDMI and Cat6 port for planned projector. 

Ready for DRYWALL

Supports to hang up our Plasma TV.

Sep 26 Electrical Cont....

Sep 26, 2012

Continued with more electrical work, some changes to existing plans and even though I thought we were close to being done both we did spent whole day, including trip to Home Depot as we run out of 14/2 wire.
Some time was spent on removing existing 4 light fixtures and re-running cold room light and fixture to be hooked up under new circuit.

Installed: 
-4 new circuits (not hooked to the pannel yet we need to have licensed electrician to check)
this set up is good to run over 5000 W of total power.
(Good to know 15Amp breaker is ok to support 1440W of continous power but electricians advise to plan for 1200W per 15Amp breaker)
-15 new outlets
-10 light switches
-3 switches for 3 areas will be 3 way set up required 14/3 wire
-19 pot lights in 3 different zones (media room, main room, bar section)
-6 regular light fixtures
This took roughly about 750 ft of 14/2 wire and 75ft of 14/3 wire for 3 way switches

Time Spent: 2x9hrs = 18 work hours.
Cost: 250ft 14/2 wire = 75$ (no hook ups for wire like last bit)

Sep 19/20 Insulation & Electrical

September 19

- Continued insulation of the ceiling with Roxul Safe'nSound insulation, I was done after about 3 hrs. This work so far hardest I encounter, mostly do to difficult placement of the a/c vents and me trying to cover every inch of ceiling space possible.

Hours: 1 x 3hours

September 20

Very productive day, with help of my dad and his positive attitude we managed to finish rest of the ceiling to be covered with sound/fire proof insulation.

We also moved up to being about 70% done with electrical.
3 new circuits created (will need to add one more) that will power up 16 new outlets and 5 light fixtures and so far 19 pot lights.
- 3 spaces created that will be on 3 way dimmers (bar section, media room, and main room) all covered in 19 pot lights.
- Storage and laundry room will have regular 3 fixtures on 2 separate switches.
- Media room will have mood lighting just where the sitting section will be in the future.

Hopefully all will work.

Hours: 2 x 9 hrs = 18 hrs.Cost: Insulation $235, Cable used about 400ft so far FREE curtsy of my Dad.

Sep 11 & 12 Framing Electrical & Insulation

September 11

Slow progress in that day:

- Deficiencies on framing work where it was still missing and needed to be changed

- Framing on 1 of 2 windows was done ready for drywall. 

- Layout was done for where the electrical outlets will be placed.

- Planning for wall mount Plasma TV and future Projector and wall reinforcement to hold the wall mount.

Hours: 1x8+ (1x5) =13 Hrs Total

Cost: $72 Wall mount electrical bracket plust a bag of insulation Roxul Safe'n'Sound.

September 12

- Modification to division of one space was done (framing).

- Window 2 out of 2 windows was done for framing.

- Electrical boxes and light switch boxes attached.

- 1 bag of Sound Proof insulation placed (this was really crappy job!!! only covered about 60sq/ft) will need about 10 bags to finish whole space. Process is slow and messy as there is lot of piping that have to get covered.

Hours: 2x5hrs = 10 Hrs Total

Cost: (Some electrical boxes, and some wood) $40

New Toy

New Toy my Dad got to help us through the project.

Sep 4, 5, & 6 Getting ready for electrical!

September 4, 201 

Back from "vacation" mode started on September 4th where we finished up some framing on some drainage pipe taking most of the day.  Work wasn't to difficult and took about 8 hours with some breaks for both of us.
Cost: 2x4s $30
         Soundproof insulation 1 bag $45 (for later use)
Time Spent: 2 man x 8 hrs.

September 5 & 6, 2012

Code in Canada dictates that putting pot lights where insulation is used needs to be separated or not in contact with insulation. To avoid putting expensive enclosures (about 30$ each) it was decided that after putting soundproof insulation it will be separated with plywood enclosures.  That way there is no added cost and some scrap plywood we had will be used up.

Roughly it was decided that for area of two main spaces there will be about 20 pot lights used, which would have needed about 20 enclosures.  Money saved about $600 :)


Time spent 1 man x 14 hrs
Money saved: ~$600