Stone/Shagwell Basement Updates (photos included)

Hello again, gang. It's been a loooooooonnnnng-ass weekend, but a very productive one. Okay, so the weekend kinda stretched into today to get everything done, but why split hairs?

With the exception of installing the bi-fold door, the new storage area under the stairs is DONE!

Here we see some of the steel stud wall prior to all the drywall being added (as told during the last chapter.) Please note the silly-ass ducting layout in the upper-right corner. Fucken' subdivision construction...
















Here's my DW armed with the drill helping to put up one of the last sheets on the partition.




















Et, voila! We have WALL!

This weekend's efforts were focused on enclosing the basement stairs and adding drywall to the area under the stairs so we can have a nice, tidy storage space.

(Sidebar story: We went to Home Despot to get everything we needed for this weekend. Unfortunately, my F-i-L's van was only 46" wide on the inside, rendering it useless to carry a large amount of material 48" wide. Fortunately, HD kindly makes a 10' cargo van available for short-term rental for folks to take larger items home. But even in a place the size of the 'Bee, they only have ONE van available. When we went in, we figured we'd manage one of two things: we'd either get the van, or we'd arrange to have all the stuff delivered. It was a pretty simple list, really: 10 sheets of ½" drywall, one sheet of ½" G1S plywood for backing the stairs, 2 1"x10"x8" and 2 1"x8"x8' boards for shelving, plus assorted hardware, drywall corner beading, etc. etc. HD tells us that we have to have our purchase done before we can ask for the van. At 1:15 PM it had gone out and it was 3-ish when we arrived.

So, we got it all done and DW went to see about the van while I got the stuff out to the loading area outside. She calls from the desk to tell me that the van just went out and wasn't expected back for another 90 mins.

SHIT.

We can get the stuff delivered on Monday, but we really, really, really wanted to have it all available to work on Sunday. Brilliant woman that my DW is, she suggested that we see if we can get a van from one of the rental places for a quickie rental. After a moment's confusion about cargo vans vs. cube vans we were told there was one available where we rented last time. Only one snag: They closed at 4:30 and it was 3:58.

Long story short, I raced to the rental place and grabbed the van, unfortunately leaving DW guarding our hoard in somewhat chilly weather. Needless to say, that was a scramble we didn't want to go through again.)

On the way home, we snagged a brad nailer (nice & cheap, too) to help us with the stair work.




















Unloading was a complete bitch, but we managed to get everything we needed downstairs and ready to roll.

The in-laws came over later than night and enjoyed the hockey game and a nice buffet meal with us. DW was downstairs sorting out the last of her massive Avon order for The Girl's choir and I sat upstairs with F-i-L discussing various options for the ceiling of the basement area and some imminent plumbing issues for the move of the laundry room to the basement.

Sunday rolled around and we got right to work. Okay....so we slept in and got to work at 11AM...again with the hair-splitting!

We started in on the backing for the stairs. I got to break in my circular saw, complete with laser guide. Apparently you need to look like a CSI tech if you have a tool with on-board laser.




















The brad nailer worked like a dream and the stair backing went in with no problems. I took a moment to admire and appreciate the handiwork from the inside.




















In typical Stone fashion, there's one little visible error. On one of the backings I had the good side facing inwards, revealing a nice knot. We decided to make the best of it and commemorate the error in carpenter's pencil.
















However, we had our stairs backed!! Eventually we'll carpet them, but that will be one of the final steps in the basement project.





















We added the drywall to the back of our new storage area before putting up shelves. We decided not to plaster or spackle the space in there because the drywall was just to make sure that stuff didn't slip off the backs of the shelves between the studs. (NOTE to the bright-light previous owner who did some of the original partition wall work years ago...studs are 16" ON CENTRE, not 16" apart....moron) After the drywall went up, the shelves were next. A pretty good off-the-cuff job if we do say so ourselves. We've added a small fluorescent light behind the stairs to provide a bit of illumination, but here's the finished space. (Note that the distortion is because of the camera lens and the short distance, not a lack of 'square' on my part.)




















All that needs to happen now is getting the bi-fold installed and we can seal that all off.

As we crawled, weary, into bed last night we felt good about the work. Our home is really taking shape and we get to take all the credit. (cuz that's what its all about, really.) *grin*

Oh, yeah...and its about the power tools, too.

I'd like to note that with the photo uploads and other things going on it took ages to get this post done. Friggin' slow Blogger...