Rec Room
UncleMac
Posts: 13,699 Member
Part of what started off this project was the layout... the useless hallway, the oversized laundry room and the disco-era rec room.
I don't know which was worse; the rec room with it's awful with nasty smelly carpet glued to tiles which were stuck to the concrete. The ceiling had faux wooden beams; the wood was real but it wasn't structural. There was a dry bar in one corner, an electric fireplace in another corner and one wall was covered by a home-built entertainment centre of sorts.
At least the laundry room wasn't as nasty... although it wasn't great either... The green indoor-outdoor carpet wasn't glued down; the laundry sink was inaccessible etc...
So I knocked down the drywall and determined neither the hallway walls nor the shared wall/closets between the laundry and rec room were weight bearing... so I could remove them and did so. In this picture, the tarp on the right is covering the stairs (to keep dust from going upstairs), part of the hallway is still intact but the closet walls are gone. The pattern on the floor shows where the walls were formerly found.
I don't know which was worse; the rec room with it's awful with nasty smelly carpet glued to tiles which were stuck to the concrete. The ceiling had faux wooden beams; the wood was real but it wasn't structural. There was a dry bar in one corner, an electric fireplace in another corner and one wall was covered by a home-built entertainment centre of sorts.
At least the laundry room wasn't as nasty... although it wasn't great either... The green indoor-outdoor carpet wasn't glued down; the laundry sink was inaccessible etc...
So I knocked down the drywall and determined neither the hallway walls nor the shared wall/closets between the laundry and rec room were weight bearing... so I could remove them and did so. In this picture, the tarp on the right is covering the stairs (to keep dust from going upstairs), part of the hallway is still intact but the closet walls are gone. The pattern on the floor shows where the walls were formerly found.
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This picture is from the opposite side of the room after the hallway walls are gone...
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Long story short, I ended up finding a small crack in the foundation which I injected with foam to repair... then used a membrane paint to seal the foundation to keep water out... Once that was done, I put up rigid foam insulation as previously there was no insulation and no vapour barrier... Then I framed in walls, reducing the laundry room to a more normal size... and making the rec room larger... as in 24 feet long by 14 feet wide... big enough for a pool table. Over the past few months, I've been wiring in lights, etc and now I'm finally to the point of adding the last bit of insulation... fibreglass mats...
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And so the drywalling begins... A few years ago, I bought this drywall lift while it was on sale.
Generally putting drywall on a ceiling is a huge nuisance... nearly impossible to do without two people AND some way of bracing the drywall up until it's secured in place... Having the lift allows me to do this solo.
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So far, so good... I put up four more 12'x4' sheets including cutting out light fixtures & vents.
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Two steps forward... le sigh...
If you look closely at the picture above this post, across from the rectangular cutouts (vents), there is a lump in the centre sheet of drywall. Initially I was going to leave it... but my fussy nature showed up. I ended up removing half the screws, letting the sheet partly down so I could access the space above where I found one of the braces (similar to this one) was 1/4" too low. So I shaved off the extra 1/4" and screwed the drywall back up again. Problem solved.
After fixing the issue, I put up the final 12'x4' sheet. My back was starting to get grumpy so I decided to work on the walls for a while instead.
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The 12'X4' panels are a bear to wrestle around but the advantage of having fewer seams to fill should more than make up for the extra grunting & sweating...
Also very glad I bought the rotary cutting tool for going around windows doors etc.. It does a great job!!
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Ceiling is done and I'm putting drywall over the HVAC ducts.
I got tired of drywall so I decided to hang the door to the laundry room...
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So much work accomplished last week. Nice job doing it solo!1
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Another productive day. The most challenging wall so far, I would say...
Oops!! I started writing 0.5 of an inch and that looked wrong so I changed it to 1/2 inch... but I missed a number.
The rim joist itself was level and plumb. The bottom sill and the studs of the upper area, however, weren't straight. I used a saw to remove around half of an inch in two areas (they're lighter in colour) and then used a hand plane to smooth things out.
How much did I cut & shave? Well...
Once I got that sorted out, I cut strips of half inch plywood which I placed at several points to create a more level and plumb surface for the drywall... and then I hanged up the drywall... I think it's looking good so far...
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Wow. Amazing job. 👏👏👏👏2
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Not sure if this panoramic pic will work or not... The rec room is nearly 24' x 15' so my pool table will fit...
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Tape and mud... mud and tape... rinse and repeat... lol
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Looks fantastic! So much work though!0
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I'm looking forward to finishing up the mudding. Should be done tomorrow, I think. Working above my head on the step ladder isn't making my back happy. The last hour today, I stopped mudding and did some sanding on the ground-level stuff as I was getting creaky.Looks fantastic! So much work though!
The laundry room mudding will be easier since there's no drywall on the ceiling. Once the walls are done, I'll add a t-bar dropped ceiling.2 -
Sanding sanding sanding... At this rate, I might be priming tomorrow...
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To help keep the dust out of the rest of the house, I put two large box fans in the windows, blowing out. This makes the room is at lower pressure than the rest of the house... so I'm literally drawing air from the rest of the house... and dust can't swim against the movement of air. So far, it seems to be working well.1
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Here's my dust abatement strategy (as per above) and while it isn't a complete solution, it works well.
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After finishing up for the day, I hit the shower. When I took off my iWatch, I chuckled and took a pic to show Pam later.
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After a couple of hours of frantically doing touch-ups, cleaning up etc., we sprayed the first coat of primer-sealer. We went through two gallons rather quickly... and didn't paint the ceiling... but overall, I'm pleased with the results.
Pam says she thinks she'll use a roller when it comes time to do the final painting. It was her first time using an airless sprayer and I think she's worried she won't do as good of a job as she might with a normal roller...
The picture is a bit deceiving... the room is nearly 24 feet long and nearly 15 wide...
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It took more than a gallon to paint the ceiling with the sprayer. No doubt it is much faster than painting with a brush or roller but it seems messier as well. Part of that could be due to inexperience with the equipment.
My wife's style with the sprayer is like none I've ever seen... she waved it about with a jerking motion like she was using a spray can... When I started off painting the wall to show her what I believe to be the best method (having used spray guns before although not this particular model), she nodded but then did things her own way. Whatever... most everything got painted and that's what is important.
I titled this artistic piece "Overspray; It Happens"
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Lol on the overspray. I don't let my husband near a sprayer any more!
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12" LED light fixture at the base of the stairs...
18" LED light fixture in the centre of the room...
Pot lights along both sides of the room...
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The lights look great!
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That is a HUGE room. No wonder you’ve had so much work. Looks great. I can’t wait to see the finished product. 👊1
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I reinstalled the barn-style door. It's metal & glass.
This HVAC return vent has a bit of a story. I find it amusing; hopefully you do too.
That wall is a weight bearing wall and, being close to a corner, the space between the studs is less than the usual 10 inches. The return vent ties into the HVAC system by a 5 inch which is the standard size for HVAC supply lines. Whoever installed it originally created a custom inlet which might sound good but it really wasn't... It was a piece of sheet metal basically pounded, bent and warped before being nailed between the studs. The previous vent cover was modified... literally cut to fit... When I looked at the house, I noticed the odd hacked up vent cover but I figured as long as it works, who cares? I wasn't aware of the ugly mess behind it.
So when I removed the old drywall, I looked at the old modified vent cover and tossed it, figuring I would come up with something better. I looked at the custom inlet and shook my head. I can't imagine any professional taking pride in such a mess but I guess craftsmanship isn't common anymore.
When I was ready to drywall that corner, I decided the best way to deal with it was to scrap the "custom" inlet. I replaced it with a standard 4x10 outlet which I turned 90 degrees to fit the confined space between the studs. It fits the 5 inch return line perfectly... and 4x10 vent covers are available. The louvers are normally supposed to face down for esthetic reasons and supposedly to inhibit dust from getting sucked into the system. I mounted it such that the louvers face toward the corner.
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Wow. Love the door. So much going on behind the scenes0
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This house is a "back split" with three levels. The main floor has the kitchen and living room. Upstairs has three bedrooms and the main bathroom (6 steps up) and the lower level has the rec room, the laundry room and a second bathroom.DogloverTerri wrote: »Wow. Love the door. So much going on behind the scenes
As a result of the configuration, there is a crawl space (around 4 feet high) under the main part of the house. The HVAC system is housed there and plenty of room for storage. It's called a crawl space for a reason... moving around inside to replace the furnace filters or access stored items is not easy... The half-door was original to the house, giving access to the crawl space.
When I renovated, I removed a small hallway which originally separated the laundry room from the rec room and bath. I built a new wall making the laundry room smaller (although it's still far from small) and got a new barn-style door, this meant I had a couple of extra doors and frames. So I modified one of the doors and it's frame which I used to add a second half-door directly across from the HVAC system.
In this pic, the new half-door is on the right. In the background, you can see the original half door and the sideways HVAC return. The hole for the other lower level HVAC return is next to the new half door...
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More "fit and finish" work while waiting for the flooring to arrive. Rather than drywalling the window returns, I chose to do them with paint-grade wood. The rec room window opening is 8 feet long and 29 inches tall. Not bad...
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