Progress has been slow on the basement finishing over the summer but now that colder weather has arrived things are picking up. This evening I pronounced the bathroom and center room shelving area ready for paint. Earlier today we picked up the last few sheets of drywall needed to finish the train room. As predicted earlier, the train room is looking like it will be completed in November. Right on schedule.
I changed my process on the joint compound in the bathroom and I am pleased with how it worked out. Because of a suggestion placed on the LK&O blog by Paul Ristuccia I now wipe the edges of the joint compound with a dampened rag (didn’t have a junk sponge) shortly after applying. This makes the feather edge so much easier to sand since it is almost finished just from the wiping. I highly recommend the wet wipe. Thanks Paul. My attempts at wiping the entire application were less successful. It didn’t seem to make any difference since flattening was still needed. My second change was to a more coarse sandpaper for the initial sanding. I use 150 Al Ox brown paper on a 10″ flat board for all but the final sand which I go back to the original 220 grit white paper. The new process is faster and produced very flat and smooth joints. Still looks like a flour mill while I’m sanding but a good vacuuming takes care of that.
Also finished are the laundry tub and the sewer crock ejection system. Both work well and all the plumbing is inside the new wall. It is sweet having a utility wash tub in the basement. It is already seeing heavy use. With the plumbing functional all that is need to make it into a functioning bathroom are the appliances. We are not installing these since we want to use the room for storage. Like a giant closet. If we ever decide the bathroom is needed we can have it fully functional in a day. The smoke detectors are hardwired in in all 4 rooms now too.
Tomorrow, train room construction resumes. The built-in shelving will come out and drywall will go up.
Wow, that’s looking good. Nice too see you’re thinking of the details already at this stage of construction. That bodes well for the quality of the future layout. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished rooms…
Nice. When you are done how bout comming to Altanta for about a week in my basement?