Basement, part two: Stairs and framing

Saturday afternoon the home improvement store delivery truck delivered lumber and insulation for the next phase of our basement remodeling project. One of the delivery men asked if Thing One would like to pull the air horn on the truck. Thing One was very excited to do it. Thing Two does not like loud noises and started to cry.

The first task in the plan was to fix the stair case. Monday after work I pulled out the 1×10 boards out of the wood pile and cut them to fit as risers. I glued the risers in place and then used screws to tie the risers to the treads from underneath and above. Screws on either side of the riser finished it up. I continued until I ran out of screws. I thought I would run to the store to buy more, until I looked outside and saw ice on the roads.

Tuesday and Wednesday were icy enough that I did not feel safe driving to work. So I framed the rec room. I framed it with 2×4s mostly making half walls. This framing was done with nails which I had purchased before the snow storm. I did half walls to maintain the width of the room up high. My thought is that it will make the room look bigger. (It is pretty large under any measure, about 430 square feet). This framing will allow code level electrical and insulation. Certain portions of the wall needed framing all the way to the ceiling.

By Thursday, it had thawed out enough that I finally could make it to the store to buy more screws and one more 1×10 board. I was able to modify the bottom step to make it two steps down rather than one large drop. When we first looked at the house, the previous owner had been using an old suitcase as a final step down from the staircase. Our temporary improvement was a step stool. Now it is a real step. Overall the staircase is more stable and much quieter now.

The last bit of framing is going to be on both sides of the stairs, a half wall in the laundry, a new full wall for the washer and dryer, and a half wall in the work room.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 01st, 2006 at 11:47pm and is filed under projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.