1 month milestone today. Carpet is getting installed as we speak, hopefully the hardwood this weekend.
Finished all the drywall work lastnight and put a coat of primer on everything.
hallway:
I decided to use bifold closet doors for access to utilities:
used some motar mix to fill in the stress relief seams so i don’t feel them through the carpet:
If all goes well, i’ll have the carpet install complete this morning and get all the finishing detail (framing in the window, baseboards, etc) done this weekend. Then i can work on getting the hardwood in the hallway and closet. Can’t wait to stop sleeping in the living room.
actually it’s 12mm laminate…i’ve just gotten into the habit of calling it hardwood. I’ll be putting a dense polyeurathane closed-cell foam under it which acts as a vapor barrier as well.
i’m not impressed with the maintenance and up-keep that hardwood requires… plus since the hallway leads to a storage room…laminate will hold up better with things that will likely get dragged along the surface… especially as a rental.
Steel studs use a footer track. I just used 5/32" masonary bit and tap-con screws to secure the track to the floor. I also put some sill foam to but a vapor barrier between the steel and concrete.
Did you add steel doors at the top of the 2nd floor stairs so you can safely lock the kids away while engaged in festive activities in the new master bedroom or go on vacation?
Furnace should be piped to the exterior with 2 pipes. 1 intake and 1 exhaust. This will equalize the pressure in the home… you’re exhaust is leaving the house yet the air inside it isn’t being replaced if you just vent it. If your house is sealed properly, this could actually make your furnace work harder than it has to.
If you just attach a ladder to the wall for the window exit, that would be sufficient… it could even be a rope ladder. I doubt that law has changed since I bought my home, but it is possible.
The furnace was left alone…it has a return intake pulling air from the garage. However the builder did it is how it is now.
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Sure. Probably not a text book example of electrical safety. No wires in the wall are hot yet, they have yet to be tied into the fuse box. I just plugged the circuit that feeds my recessed lighting…to get temporary lighting.
nice work Josh!! I guess this explain why I haven’t seen you guys in a while LOL. Can’t wait to see it finished and of course your kids and awesome wife!!!
working on the bathroom now to try bringing it to the same level of compeltion as the bedroom which is awaiting trim work.
FYI, working with HardyBacker board is a huge PITA! I found the best way to cut it is using a recipicating saw… it seems to just chew through blades. Using a knife, scoring and breaking isn’t working…this stuff appears to be laminated so you can’t break it like drywall. It’s also hard to screw near the edges without it exploding
Anyway, i put the shower pan liner in place, filled it with 3" of water and let it set for a day to make sure there were no leaks. No issues. Lined the shower with 6mil plastic and overlapped it over the pan liner (40mil Vinyl). Right now i’m working on getting the cement board in place.
When i designed the shower wall layout I didn’t realize this shit came as 3’x5’ sheets, otherwise i would have spaced the studs accordingly…so every sheet needs to be trimmed to fit. lame.
here’s the progress:
Sewage sump in the back, framed out awaiting a cover. Toilet sits infront of the sewage pump enclosure and the vanity is the right, you can see the plumbing in the wall.
finishing the drywall. Mold/moisture resistant drywall is a must in the bathroom where you don’t have direct exposure to water. I used HardBacker board (cement board) in the immediate shower area where it is more likely to get wet.
Installed the recessed shelving which will be tiled:
The shower pan. The 40mil liner extends about 1’ up the walls with 6mil plastic on the walls incase there is any water that gets through the walls it will get diverted to the shower pan without leaking through the walls. I put 2x4’s on edge and anchored them to the concrete floor. The 2x4’s will be encased in a concrete curb that i will need to frame a mold for and pour.
Once i get the walls finished, i’m gonna work on getting the concrete cast in the shower pan. If it works according to plan, i will leave the concrete with no need to tile it. :fingers-crossed:
