Some more progress

I finished the hallway and added a closet at the end.  I also dropped the ceiling about a foot in half of the family room and the hallway because of support beams and duct work.

Guest room with fancy recessed ceiling

I finished framing the guest bedroom, including a stepped recessed ceiling.  It will look very similar to the recessed ceiling in our dining room upstairs.  Man, that was a *lot* of work!  

Look! A Closet!

I framed up the closet for the guest room.  This was a little bit tricky because of the 45 degree corner.

The space left between the guest room and exercise room is going to be a storage room.

More Framing

I framed up the exercise room closet and the wall with the window.  I also framed up one of the walls of the guest room.  I'll frame up the two interior walls first, then put a soffit around the perimiter of the room (in part to hide some ductwork and pipes, and in part just to give it the "recessed ceiling" look.  I need to do the soffits before the exterior walls since they are suspended walls, and they will actually be suspended from the soffits.  I'll nail/glue the soffit directly to the concrete wall. 

Here are some pictures of my recent work.  Progress is slow, but it's starting to take shape.

My first interior wall

This wall will divide my exercise room and a storage room.  I decided to add a closet as well so it can optionally be another bedroom.

My first soffit

I built a soffit to hide some pipes and a steel beam.  Vanessa helped me hold it in place so I could nail it up.  I also framed another 25 feet or so of wall.

My First Window

I framed up a couple more sections of wall, including my first window.  Jesse gave me a hand with these.  It's obvious he has a lot more experience than I do.  He can measure and cut twice as fast as I can.

My First Door

I framed up the rest of the South family room wall, which includes my very first door!  As you can see, the door will go to a small storage room/pantry.

Getting Started

I've been planning my basement for over a year now.  It took me awhile to decide how to design around the obstacles.  The stairs are pretty much in the middle of the basement, but offset slightly.  The wider side has all the ductwork, support pole and beam, and the water main which entered through my slab about two feet from the wall.  Initially I wanted to make this side of the stairs a storage area, and put the family room on the other side with no obstacles and an unobstructed 9 foot ceiling.  But at about 13 feet, the other side just wasn't quite wide enough for what I wanted.  So I decided to put the family room on the wider side.  I could box in the support pole, beams, and duct work and make it look decent.  The only remaining hurdle was the water main.  I decided it had to be moved.  I bought an air chisel from Harbor Freight and went to work.  After 5 or 6 hours, this is what it looked like:

About 4 feet above the ground there was a pressure regulator, and then another valve where it split off to go to the sprinklers.  I moved all this about 10 feet around the corner.  Here's the finished product:

With that out of the way, I can really get started!  The wall with the water pipe was the longest wall, so I decided to start there.  First I picked up a couple truckloads of 2x4's from Home Depot and fed them into the basement through a window well.  I nailed the base plate to the concrete slab with a powder actuated nailer.  Then out came the framing nailer which I got for a steal (along with 4 other nailers) at the Lowe's black friday sale.  After some cutting and measuring and nailing (not necessarily in that order), I finished my very first wall!

Gina and Vanessa helped me lift it into place.  A few more nails, and voila!

Because of the expansive soil in Colorado, code requires that walls be "floating".  So the walls are suspended from the ceiling.  Notice the space between the base plate and the sill plate.

My first "blog"

Wow, I have my own blog.  Next thing you know I'll be getting a cell phone or something.