Billybar's Basement Theater etc.. Build - Page 2

I started fire blocking one of the walls and here are the pictures as promised. Also, why is it that no matter how hard I try to prepare myself to work with insulation I always end up itching afterwards....scratch scratch.

I jammed in some insulation so it's nice and tight between the wood fire blocks and the foam board. The insulation around the sump plumbing is on both sides.


Here is the part of the wall I added another vertical board to limit the amount of space behind the wall that a fire could travel. There is a small gap between the piece of wood and the foam board that I will be filling with more insulation or more likely some great stuff fire block foam.


Close up of the vertical board in place.


The only thing not done is filling of the remaining gaps which I will do all at once when all the fireblocking is complete. I will use this stuff. I didn't want to do just this small area since once you start using this stuff you have to use the whole can since it won't work if you come back to it later. It gets all clogged up.

Yeah that's for sure, I wish I could go back to when the house was being built. I would've had them do so many things differently!

I wish I could take credit for that wine cellar but truth is I found it while surfing one day and it inspired me to build one just like it in my basement. I don't have any more pictures because it hasn't been started yet other than ordering the window for it. Someday there will be plenty of pictures that you are more than welcome to. I plan to have it completely framed with the window in place within the next few months.

I just realized I hadn't posted any pictures of the fun crack in the wall I had to repair. I guess I must have been blocking it out....actually the pictures were just in an unrelated folder and I over looked it.

Here is the crack I had the water issue with. I was hoping that some hydraulic cement and a layer of drylock would do the trick but no such luck. During a weekend of heavy rain in came the water once again. This of course was after I already had the insulation up so I had to remove the piece that was over the crack and then scrape off all the drylock and chisel out the crack so I could have some surface area to work with for the polyurethane injection. The marks on the wall are where I put the injection ports. The circle is where the water leaked the most. Thankfully it was very easy to recreate the water leak so I would be able to tell for sure if the injection in fact corrected the issue.


Here is the kit that I used to seal the crack. It was actually very easy to use and only took a few hours to do including cure time.


Here is the wall after the injection ports and the epoxy were in place


A close up of one of the ports


This is after the polyurethane was injected and the ports removed. PROBLEM SOLVED!!......hopefully


The following day the moment of truth came. To recreate the leak previously all I had to do was stick a hose in the window well and turn it on for a few seconds. Within a couple of minutes water would be entering the basement through this crack. For this test I put the hose in the window well and turned it on full blast for several minutes. Not a drop of water entered! Yay! Since the fix we've had some major rain storms and still nothing! Dry as a bone....this stuff really works!!

I finally got to spend some time working on the basement since the holidays have passed.

I have a good start on the gym soffit work. I was dreading this but it's actually moving along pretty quickly. My plan is to complete all the soffit work in the gym before continuing with the walls. The soffit bottoms will become the anchors of my top plates in this area because of all the stuff that's in the way up above.

I'm hoping only another few days of work before this step is complete.

Here are some pics of the most recent progress.

The main soffit that will get past the beam and the duct work




The starting of the second soffit to get past the plumbing above. This bottom of this soffit is about 4 inches higher than the other one. This is the gym area so headroom is at a premium for our equipment. The 4 extra inches makes a difference!






Some more progress on the first and second soffits

Edited by barlav - 3/14/13 at 9:36am

Good luck Nick, I looked at your thread and your basement wall crack looks just like mine did. The kit should do the trick. Nice pinball machines too! I am going to be in the market for one for my game room. If I get a used one can I expect it to hold up well? I don't know anything about them really.

This is the place and kit I used for the repair:
http://www.radonseal.com/crack-injec...-injection.htm

Here is the link to the product itself for purchasing. It's kind of a lousy website as far as finding a product and getting it in your cart:
http://www.radonseal.com/Merchant2/m...Category_Code=

Made some more progress over the weekend on the soffits in the gym but not enough for any meaningful photo updates. The stomach bug ran through my household over the weekend. Somehow I was lucky enough to be the only one to miss it. As a result of that though I didn't have as much time in the basement as I had hoped.

I ran out of materials so I made a materials run today. By the time I got the materials into the basement I was too tired to do anything else so didn't get much done today.

It's funny how the space keeps shrinking the more I frame. I have changed up my floor plan a bit from the original. I have decided to put the media room in a closet under the stairs and remove the one in the original floor plan completely to free up that space. I will post a new floor plan tomorrow with the changes. Having everything equipment wise centered in the space will also provide much shorter runs for the various wires,cables.

Alright, enough babbling for now.

Here is the original floor plan and the updated floor plan below it

Original Floor Plan - Once I got framing I realized the "media closet" was really cutting into the gym space so I decided to take it out of the plans and use the under the stairs space for the media equipment.




The New Floor Plan The media closet has been removed. The media closet was going to cover up the sub panel that's on that wall as well as the cable connections that come into the house at that point. Now I will put the sub panel in the joist cavity of the wall and keep it flush with the outside of the drywall. I will most likely hang a framed poster or picture over it to hide it when all is said and done (yeah I know that's against code but consider it a minor infraction) . I am also going to add an access panel flush with the wall over in that area too for the cable connections. It will be a small control center that will just manage the various cable feeds I have coming into the the house.


The space under the stairs is a lot smaller than what I was planning for the media closet but I think it will be large enough to fit what I need to put in there. There will be the AVR, hd cable box, DVR, blu ray player, roku box, network switch, router, conduit termination for all the wires and cables, game system(s) and a couple of pcs and smaller stereo receivers for the touch screen jukeboxes. I also won't be able to use my rack so I will do something custom to make this work. I will also need to keep this space cool so I will add some kind of intake/exhaust fans to keep it well ventilated.

I'm still not sure what I am going to put in the game room as far as activities and furniture go so I keep changing the floor plan. At a minimum I would like some seating, a pinball machine and an electronic dart board like you see at bars. I will probably also get some kind of collapsible poker table that I can put up and take down as needed.

It is crazy how many things are going through my head as the build progresses. Now I'm worried about the corner where the wine cellar meets the bathroom and that it will eliminate any possibility of big furniture in that space. I wasn't planning on having any big couches in that space now but who knows about the future. I don't think there is any way a couch or anything that big and awkward would fit around that corner. I am going to do whatever I can when framing the wine cellar to give myself as much space as possible turning that corner and play around with the big couch I have down there now to see what I am going to end up with.

I picked up the wine cellar window today. It is a 48" X 34" insulated double paned tempered glass window.

Here is the side of the window that will face out:


Here is the side of the window that will be on the inside of the wine cellar:


The window's energy performance ratings:


The window will go in this wall as marked:


And this is the other side of that wall. As you enter the basement you will be able to look to your left through the window into the wine cellar:

Haha! Gotta love the playoffs!!

Next step will be to continue framing the walls around the gym. This will include securing the sub panel to the new wall, adding a cable distribution center next to the breaker box, adding a door rough in to the workshop and framing out the media closet under the stairs which will also have a door.

After that I'm going to knock out a section of one side of the stair well wall to open things up a bit. I have already determined that neither side of the stairwell walls are load bearing. I am going to remove the first 3 studs from this side.



I will also frame in the window for the wine cellar on the other side here:


After that I will grab some 2X6's for the wine cellar walls and frame that out which will officially be the end of the framing stage!

I'm currently working on coming up with a plan for lights, outlets, conduit, etc... Hopefully I will be able to hit the ground running as soon as the framing is done.

Edited by barlav - 3/14/13 at 9:37am

Not a very exciting update but an update nonetheless. Completed one more wall and moved the sub panel from temporary framing into the new wall:

The New Wall







The Sub Panel Before:


The Sub Panel Now:


The only circuit I have wired now is for the workshop tools/lights. I rewired this circuit to make it cleaner and to go through the hole in the top plate. In the interest of keeping this simple I decided not to rewire the entire sub panel to get the thick supply cable through a hole in the top plate.



This gets me to about 85% done with the framing. I am hoping to wrap this framing stuff up soon so I can move on to other things. I bought a pot light and some wire the other day that I am going to need to move/replace some of the existing electrical before I can open up the stairwell wall.

Edited by barlav - 3/14/13 at 9:38am

A different kind of build update today.

I had aspirations of completing most of the framing this past weekend but of course something came up. On Friday night my main computer crashed. As some of you computer people may be able to attest to, when the pc goes down it becomes priority number 1!!

So, I stayed up too late Friday night diagnosing the problem. It turned out to be the hard drive. So my Sat. started later than I expected since I was too tired to start working on the basement at my regular time. And, the first thing I needed to do is order a new hard drive so I had to shop around for that. So I ordered the hard drive (ssd this time), poured a cup of coffee and then went off to the basement.

I was distracted though, I was tired and I was wondering if I really wanted to just upgrade the hard drive?? The pc is 6 years or so old (which is a damn dinosaur for me). So after an hour or so in the basement I had an "A HA moment"....I could use the current pc hardware I had as one of my touch screen jukeboxes in the basement. I had an old ATX case that I could transplant it to and everything.

So I decided the heck with the basement framing, time to go shopping again. So I shopped for a new motherboard, cpu, ram, video card and power supply. Here is what I ended up with. Enough of the parts came today so I was able to get the thing together and test the main hardware.










The new hard drive hasn't arrived yet. And I also needed to buy a new blu-ray burner. The existing dvd burners I had were all ide IDE and there is no such thing on this motherboard. Everything is SATA now. I told you my computer was old! I definitely needed to upgrade right? I've been wanting a blu-ray burner for a while now anyway. So Hopefully the rest of the parts will arrive by the weekend and I will get the thing backup and running.

I did manage to get to the store to get the rest of the lumber I will need to complete framing. I also put down about 20 feet of bottom plate and a few studs in a new wall. Not nearly as much as I was hoping to get done this past weekend buy hey!

The last of the lumber:


And the start of the new wall:




I am hoping to make up for lost time next weekend and getting these last two walls completed and maybe under the stairs where the media cabinet will be also. That is my goal at least but we'll see how that turns out. I hope I'm not too distracted though playing Black Ops on the new rig!!

Hey thanks nicholsps,
I like apple too but just not for laptop/desktops. I like apple stuff like the iPad, iPhone etc.. but it will only ever be pcs for me as far as desktop/laptop computing goes.
I'm not sure a Mac would've been any better in this situation since it was a bad older hard drive. All hardware goes bad eventually. I like being able to pick and choose my own hardware and then put it together. I don't think there is a Mac out there that could match the specs of the rig I just built so that is another plus for the pc! I also write software and only develop with windows/linux applications so I really don't have a choice. Thankfully I've never had any kind of stability issues with my pcs since I build them myself and I have a lot of experience with making Windows do what I want it to

This weekend the media closet under the stairs was framed out as well as the rough opening for the wine cellar window in the stairwell wall. I even got to dry fit the window which was exciting. I didn't know exactly how or what to do with the framing under the stairs so I spent quite a bit of time just sitting there staring at it. The center stringer extended down further than the side strings. I have to drywall the inside of it for fire codes so I needed to figure out the easiest way to even them up.




Thankfully a 2X4 attached under the side stringers did the trick. It's not perfectly even with the center stringer but it's even enough where the drywall will attach well enough. This was nice and simple.



Here are some pictures of the opening I created that will house the rack for my equipment. This should do the trick for me. I can't wait to have easy access to the backs of my components for once. This has always been a pain for me and this will make it so easy!







Next up was to open up the side of the stairwell and frame the wine cellar window opening. A builder friend of mine gave me some good advice that I wouldn't have thought of on my own. The stairwell walls are not load bearing but that doesn't mean that when removing them a little bit of settling won't occur. He noticed some gaps in the bottom of the joist hangers and suggested it wouldn't be a bad idea to shim them before taking out any of the studs so in case there was any settling in this area it would be minimized. It may or may not serve any purpose but it made sense and was easy to do so I did it.

Wine Cellar Side:


Theater/Game Room Side:



Here is the before:




Here is now:







And I had to get the window out and give it a dry run:






Next up is to frame an identical wall right next to the window rough in wall to give me enough depth for the extra insulation I need for the wine cellar. I could've removed the entire existing wall and replaced with a 2X6 wall but decided it was just easier to frame a 2nd 2X4 wall. It was really quick the first time so it will be even quicker the second time. Then I will frame the rest of the wine cellar with 2X6 walls.


Thanks for following along!

Edited by barlav - 3/14/13 at 9:40am

Ha yeah! my black cat "Oreo" is always around when I'm working. Nothing phases her. She went after the recip saw yesterday She also likes to relocate screws on me. I'll take some out and put them on the floor and by the time I go to use them they are gone!

Finished framing the wine cellar which takes me to the end of the framing stage....finally!

Looking into wine cellar through window opening




Looking into wine cellar from the back




Next up will be to wrap a few more odds and ends with the framing and then move some electrical so I can take out the section in the other side of the basement stairwell wall. Then I will be onto the rough in stage for electrical, plumbing, networking, media which will be a nice change of pace.

Thanks for following along.

Edited by barlav - 3/14/13 at 9:42am

Had a busy weekend last weekend and didn't have anytime to work on the basement. This week I was able to get back down there and make some progress.


The first thing I needed to do is finalize what unit I was going to use for the wine cellar cooling/humidity control. My choice was:


Then it was on to relocating some existing electrical before opening up the stairwell wall. I needed to move a light switch and an outlet on the stairwell wall and also moved the doorbell transformer and junction box out of the way and into an unfinished part of the basement. I also needed to add a new junction box to take the 14-3 I needed to extend from upstairs to the new light switch location. I also placed this in the unfinished part of the basement:


The switch and outlet that are being moved (Doorbell transformer is hanging down there too)



I moved the outlet into my workshop instead of getting rid of it altogether. I am sure I will find a use for it.



A view of the old switch location and the new switch location:


A view of the moved doorbell transformer and new junction box into the unfinished area where the workshop is.









This little removed section makes a big difference! It makes the basement feel like less of a basement, it will provide a direct view into the wine cellar from the other side and it will also allow me to get some big furniture down there too.


Still need to frame from the stair stringer to the floor underneath the removed wall section. And need one last soffit section to complete the tray ceiling and then I will be truly done with framing until it comes time to build the stage, screen wall and riser.

Also, I have been measuring things in the theater and deciding on what I am going to go with as far as screen size. I have decided on a 130" diagonal 2.35:1 screen. As a result of this the sit behind bar in the back I have in the original floor plan has to be scratched to create a reasonable seating distance to the screen for two rows of seating. The riser is going to go all the way to the back wall and fit 3-4 seats. It will come off the wall 6 feet and then there will be more seats or an L-couch in front of the riser. The front row may still even be a bit close to the screen (9-10 feet) but that is far enough away to be acceptable for me.

Edited by barlav - 3/14/13 at 9:43am