Framing is progressing well. I’ve completed framing the interior walls, and now just need to finish furing out the walls where I currently have expose concrete. The hardest part is making sure I’ve got all the jogs and openings planned correctly for the plumbing pipes and wires which are not there yet. There is definitely something soothing about pounding nails a few hours a day. Framing is fun.
It’s impossible to hammer a nail through a 2×4 into a concrete floor. Some ways to attach a bottom plate are to use a rotary hammer and anchor bolts, or construction adhesive. The method I chose was to use a powder actuated driver, in essence, a gun. The one a chose cost $45 at lowes and fires a 22 caliber charge into a 3″ nail. I was amazed they sell these things at the hardware store with no 2 week waiting period or license necessary. I’ve never fired this thing through the air, vs. into wood and concrete. But, I don’t see why it would not work. I don’t plan on finding out though. Maybe if I were 14 again.
After three weeks and 2 40 yard dumpsters, demo is finally complete. Although I still need to rip out the stairs and scrape the linoleum floors in the kitchen and bathroom. The next step is to frame the new walls and call in the plumbing and mechanical ducting guys to move things around for me.
Demo is almost done. I finished the kitchen demo yesterday and measured the raw space to see what IKEA cabinets we could use. Lorna and I went down to IKEA today to pick out finishes. We decided on the Nexus Black-brown base cabinets. White laminate countertops, glass tile backsplash, and painted white upper cabinets. I decided to open up the wall between the kitchen and the living room to provide a small bar area.The wall that separates the kitchen from the living room has to be widened in order to allow for new plumbing pipes coming down fro the floor above fro the new master bathroom. So I thought it would be a good idea to use it as an accent wall and celebrate it with color. The current flooring is natural bamboo in the living room and porcelain tile in the kitchen and entry area.
The weather in Seattle is beautiful again this weekend. Everyone is BBQing and eating great food and I’m stuck in the basement working on the house; and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I exaggerate a bit. Lorna and I are still eating great food. We plan on opening a bottle of Leonetti Cab tonight with some new friends. We’ve completed demo of the laundry room, office, media room, and guest bedroom. Only the guest living kitchen and bath to go! Here’s what the basement looks like today.
Today was a continuation of demo. Not much interest in the way of photos. So while I was demoing the basement and loading up dumpster #2. Lorna was perfecting her deconstruction of the Paseo Cuban Roast Sandwich. When I was done for the day, I decided to make myself a sandwich of my own from the scrumptious citrus marinated roast pork she made. The sandwich I created is Dahlia Bakery ficelle buttered and toasted with garlic salt, Lorna’s roast pork, sautéed onions, and a runny fried egg. I enjoyed it immensely!
Now that the walls are clear in the basement, I was doing some layout planning. I can’t decide whether to take space from the Guest Bedroom closet for the location of my plotter in the Office:
Or leave the Guest Bedroom closet unchanged and just add a small bookshelf area to the office.
The plotter scheme is ideal if I were to use the space as my office. But since we plan on reselling this house in the future, I worry that the large jog in the wall of the office will leave an awkward feel to the office.
Opinions?
It’s funny how work doesn’t seem like work when it’s your own home you’re working on. This was one of the most satisfying memorial day weekends in recent memory. I spent all three days demoing the basement. Lorna helped out when she wasn’t working on her cookbook and we got quite a bit done. I was constantly lugging heavy loads of drywall, wood studs, appliances, and cabinets to the dumpster. The neighbors made a point of commenting about how much we accomplished this weekend, not to mention lots of “good jobs!” to Lorna whenever she made a dumpster run (nary a word for the heavy loads of drywall, wood studs, appliances, and cabinets I hauled.) We ended each work day with a nice grilled dinner on the new grill we picked up at Home Depot to start the weekend. I can’t think of a better way to spend the weekend than working with my wife on our home, and cooking and eating together basking in the fruits of our labor. Life is good.
PS. We missed quite a feast at Shauna and Dan’s house on Monday, but we are definitely looking forward to future parties!
I’ve learned that I vastly underestimated the amount of crap that needs to be removed from the basement. I’ve almost filled up the 25 yard dumpster and there is still more than half of the stuff left to remove. Will fill it up tomorrow and call for a new LARGER dumpster replacement. 
Here is the current state of my soon to be office as seen through the non existent Media room wall.
Revised color scheme in basement. I wanted to see how the basement looked with the revised color scheme from the main floor. 
This Modern Home 