Jester's Lounge

Well this is my first attempt, and feel it is only fair that I finally get around to starting my build thread. I've learned a lot from my mistakes and even more from this forum. Pretty sure I wouldn't be this far with out it!

Quick facts:
- Completely unfinished basement to start with, minus some roughed in plumbing
- all work done by me, including carrying 80 sheets of drywall down to the basement....man do I hate that stuff!
- I cut corners here and there to save time and money, and only regret a few of those decisions.
- I take a lot of pictures so I'll try to let them do most of the explaining
- No matter how much I planned this out, I was way off when I got around to construction, mostly on the electrical
- 4 lighting zones in the main area, 2 for the bar, one for the kids/craft room(had to put it in to get the wife to buy into it!)
- The toughest part of my build...trying to be quiet. Really the only time I got to work on this is when the baby is sleeping. So framing had to be done in quick stages, the rest was just done patiently.

Equipment
- Setup for 7.1
- planning on 100" Carada & possibly Panny 4000( see what's available when I get to that point)
- HDMI/Cat5e/cable run to the bar from the media rack
- plug in center planned for the snackbar area behind the theater seating -- will have HDMI/Cat5e/serial port hook ups to plug in the laptop


Quick Links to the build

Rough in Plumbing aka Fun with a jackhammer

Framing and Insulation

Drywall - a never ending process

Primer, Paint and Tile

Envirotex!

Pictures to follow!
...I also see this as my motivator, now that it is out there to the world, I feel obligated to get my butt down there and finish it!

The starting point


Bar Area





Future Screenwall

First I had to build a place to hold all the "junk" so I had more of a clear workspace. Funny how even after it was built, and filled completely more junk filled its spot. This is probably my first regret, not cleaning up everything and having a clean workspace. Stepping over and around things just added that much more work. Shelving may not appear "equal", this was done on purpose based on the sizes of rubbermaid bins that would be used to organize the storage area.



Owning one of these, made life so much easier


Looking through the wall from the craft room



...mroe pics on the home computer, I'll update these later

My first road block, and a chance to rent a big power tool. Best I can tell this was a rough in for a toilet and a vanity. I wanted to add the capability of a shower and rotate the layout to tuck into the corner nicely.

Before


First hole dug


Second hole...and an interesting reveal



The reveal...yep that's duct tape on the end of a T that would essentially be a drain pipe, not sure how this ever passed inspection

The duct tape....with vents!


New drains laid in and covered with concrete


All in all a learning experience, that I wasn't so sure I should tackle. I just broke it down to it's simplest of parts and kept to that mindframe and it went surprisingly well.

Framing- I used the build the wall on the floor and raise it up method as oppsosed to stick building it. Seemed easier to me this way

Long wall in craft room


Closet(main water inlet) and screenwall


Long wall of "theater/seating" area


Converging pocket doors for kids room

Here are some more...thanks for the words of encouragement, I accept criticism as well...or suggestions!

Rear corner, workout area


Looking from workout area, view of bathroom wall and the entryway to the shop


A mess of wires, they are all labeled, but it's going to take some time to organize! (This is where the rack will go) Kind of a nice inset in the foundation that works out perfect

I received a couple quotes before I decided to to this on my own. Roughly $30/sheet to hang/tape/mud. So all in all about $2500 to do the job. Added it up in my head and coudn't justify the expense. I know they can do it in 1/100th of the time it will take me, but I'll get the satisfaction of knowing I did it all and I'll have more money left for a nicer screen/projector!

The first 20 sheets down


Kids/craft room - The built in shelving was a stolen idea from a magazine that my wife really wanted. She wants to paint random colors in the cubbies but she also wanted removable shelves to accomodate larger items if needed. I can take some more detailed pics if anyone is interested, but basically its 3/4" AC ply with removable horizontal shelves. I took a router and made a ~1/8" groove on the vertical pieces to hold the shelves up. This was a bit harder than I had pictures in my head but it came out perfect.


Looking at the bar area, shop entrance


Looking at the closet/screenwall

That pile is close to the end of around 60 sheets. It goes quickly and I really wish I would have gotten a drywall lift for the ceiling pieces, but I made it work without it. Having a drywall screw gun really made things MUCH easier.

Large soffit to hide the ductwork. I'm sure there may have been a way around not having this. And I may shoot myself later for not looking into it. Probably my next biggest regret, but I just couldn't figure out how those entire trunk runs would be hidden away when running perpindicular to the floor joists.

Thanks Chris- I have some ideas on sound prrofing those ducts, hence the gap between the bottom of the framing and the bottom of the duct, might be tough to tell from that picture though. As for a drawing with measurements, heck I've changed the plan so many times, the original one wouldn't matter...I suppose I could try and do a new one in Visio or at the very least Sketchup

Well Chris, I am engineer so I tend to overplan, just my nature.

Well so far this three day weekend has been very productive and having this build thread has been a bit of motivation too. I still have some more work to do today, so I will try to get some pitcures up tonight/tomorrow.
This weekends progress:
- Plumbing hooked into main line
- soffits insulated and drywalled
- main area HVAC installed
- Rest of the can lights installed
- about 98% done hanging drywall...only about 20% mudded

Just a few pictures from the weekend progress:

Lights, HVAC and drywall on the HVAC box out


Water hook up with Sharkbite connectors...unreal how easy this was


Lights over back bar


...for Chris, a rough drawing I had for the orginal screenwall, changed my mind on the shelving that I had planned for next to the screen

So it has been quite some time since I updated this thread. Had to get through the cloud of drywall dust. I don't have any immediate pitcures to post, I'll get some tonight. But I do have some immmediate questions as I was going to run by the store tonight on the way home.

First off. drywall is all up, mudded, sanded(mostly) and ready to get some primer on it. Question is how much primer and anyone have any good recommendations, or stick to the basics and go with Kilz? I'm looking at roughly 2000 sqft of drywall...

Also picked up 500 sq ft of tile this weekend, once paint is up on the walls, tile will go down on the floor...and then up the shower wall....and if gravity allows tile on the shower ceiling! Recommendations on thinset?



Tile


Wide view of room when I first started


Wide view of Room as it is now

"Back bar" behind main seating in theater area


Kind of at a road block with the A/V rack. It's going to be DIY, but not sure how to lay it out. The space for it is roughly 3'x2'x7'. Plenty of room, but no inspiration as of yet

The opening next to it, where the pink insulation board is, will be built in DVD storage.

Well things certainly have changed> Have a party scheduled for 5/29 so the time crunch has begun!

Paint is up and a lot of tile was set this weekend. Still have about another 225 sq ft to go!

Primer


Paint and tile, looking from workshop


Shower, with tile ceiling


Bar frame, workshop door



Time to have a beer and relax!

Well, its been almost a month since my last update, and things have gotten better, and the party is 5 days away!

So far:
- Tile is done
- Bathroom is virtually done, still need to add a shower door
- carpet is in
- trim is 50% done. Really thought this would go quicker but I'm being picky about perfect corners
- and a very large motivator showed up from the little brown truck....


I have more pictures, but I m kind of holding off until I can get some good, cleaned up final pictures.

Still left to do:
- Finish trim work
- closet door/ shower door
- theater bar top built (this may not happen, as I can't decide on a design yet)
- Start the base of the AV rack, final design will be a work in progress
- begin to enjoy it as opposed to working on it every night!

Resurrecting for progress updates:

The new baby finally arrived a few months ago, and now that she is sleeping and acclimated I can get back to finishing the basement. Also since it's football season the wife wants it done and a projector hung.

So -
-Trim work is done, bathroom is done, theater/snack bar is built (needs finishing)
-A/V rack I still have no clue on how to finish
-The Onkyo 9100 is in and I've "sound tested" the house, I can turn it up quite loud with little to no sound travel to the upstairs....at least not enough to wake the kids, but it's loud enough to barely talk in the basement! Love this system!

The snack bar is done with oak flooring and I once I stain it, I will be covering with Envirotex. I've read up on what I can and hopefully it comes out well!



Left to do:
Projector hung, build large bar, speaker bench top, and try to figure out what to do with the A/V rack.

Thanks Remax-

Any idea how much the gallon covers? It says 32 square feet, but not at what thickness. I'd say the top I'm covering is about 12 sq ft and will eventually be about 1/4" thick. I think I might pick up a gallon size, mix up half and call that my skim coat and try to judge from there. Got the torch ready!

OK, Envirotex. I read what I could and followed the instuctions advice of doing a seal coat first. For reference, my bartop is about 1.5'x8', and the seal coat used 1 quart and left a very thin layer. I think it will be close with the remaining Etex I have left. I bought the gallon size.

Pictures:
Bar with stain on - Red Oak


The seal coat going on


Thin layer - Eventually will be equal with the trim


Another view - around 45 minutes of curing/settling


I will probably do this in two more stages, as it says not to apply more than 1/8" think at a time. I'm not sure really, you can see in the skim coat picture that it finds all sorts of places to "dip" and voids that will be filled. The good news is that I had very little bubbles, and absolutely - at least not yet at 30 minutes after the pour - no leaks! I measured the two parts exactly and mixed it together pretty well, there was lots of bubles in the mixing bucket, but all seemed to disappear during the pour, the stuff is thick but spreads easily for the first 5 or so minutes. I used a cheap foam brush and it worked perfect.

I was worried that it would "gas off" and be a very strong odor, but it wasn't. I actually think the stain was worse. Second coat tomorrow! Comments, questions??

Tom

Did the second coat of Etex. Little bit thicker this time, but it smoothed out all of the dips and valleys that were there from the skim coat. Still had a lot of little bubbles though. I've used 3 qts total so far and it doesn't seem to thick at all to me. Was originally hoping to flood to a 1/4" thick. Looks like I need another kit. Following the directions though and this stuff looks like glass. Very happy with results!

Well it's update time, mainly to provide some construction pics of the bar that were requested in another thread I had...Moral of this bar build: make sure the door is closed to the basement when the Envirotex is drying overnight, cats tend to make a mess in it!

On to the pics!
Before - This is when tile just went down, had the PT 2x6 bolted to the floor


Frame and start of Oak "skin"


Bar top constructed with hardwood flooring and Chicago rail, PT 4x6 is the base of the foot rail