Destruction

Yesterday Sara and I spent most of the morning and some of the afternoon deconstructing the fifth room, located in the basement. The plan is to have the basement open as one big space with the fitness equipment at one end, the TV and couches at the other, and a pool table in the middle. There will be a bathroom (probably with a shower instead of full tub) and of course the utilities, but the rest will be one large space.

I had removed the drywall earlier in the week so we started the morning by carrying that up and putting it in the back of the truck. We cut up the two layers of carpet and put that in the truck as well, which left the truck piled higher than I can probably drive with. I found a local solid waste transfer station, but decided that I would go there next week so as to not slow down the immediate progress in the basement.

We started on the walls next, which were clearly not constructed by a seasoned carpenter. It was nice that he had screwed many of the studs together since that made things easier to take apart. I still needed to get out the sawsall to cut through a few screws that I couldn't get to, but after that a big ol' mallet was able to finish off the walls with quickly.

I then attacked the wacky wiring in the basement. Removing the ugly fluorescent flights and some wires that were going in weird directions. I only got electrocuted once, luckily only across one hand, so it was just a tingle and not a jolt. When everything was done and the breakers were flipped back on I had three hot wires with caps on them and one shut off breaker (that was some of the outlets in the bedroom). I can reuse that one circuit (not quite sure where yet), but I don't want to use any of the other lines since they were coming from the first floor and not specific to the basement. Unfortunately I'll have to reuse one or else I'll have to remove even more drywall to rewire the two outlets that are remaining after the demo. Oh well, at least I have enough existing wire to add in the one outlet I need up in the wall for the Replay and TV.

In the immediate future I need to add a bunch more recessed lighting over the fitness equipment space and pool table area so that there is decent lighting to continue working. I've still got to put in some accent lighting, speaker wires, vent ducting, hang drywall, install subflooring, finished flooring, prime and paint, and then install the wet bar and cabinets. Well it will give me something to do this winter, that's for sure.