Finish a Basement: A DIY remodeling adventure!
Great home theater tips to help you design and setup your basement home theater!

Return to our Home page
Visit our project planning page to learn how to prepare to finish your basement whether you're remodeling your basement by yourself, or hiring a contractor to finish your basement
Visit our design page to see how we created our basement design, and for tips on how you can design the basement of your dreams
Check here for information on the tasks you'll need to complete to finish your basement. Complete with the lessons we learned as we remodeled our basement, and tips to help you avoid some of the mistakes we made.
Whether you're designing a dedicated home theater, or creating a multi-purpose media room, check here for tips on selecting home theater components, and calibrating, and setting up your AV equipment
Check here to follow along as we complete our DIY basement remodeling project!






 

>Home >Our progress >Framing around windows

Framing around windows, ducts, and MORE!

See the previous topic in this sectionSee the next topic in this section

After building the last 4 foot section of "the big wall" it was time to frame the wall where the projector screen would go. This wall will probably be the 2nd most prominent wall in the room. It's the one everyone will be staring at when they come over for sports events or 'family movie night'.

Projector screen wall
Projector screen wall

In my original design, I was planning to bring the center of the wall (between the windows) out about a foot from the rest. This would allow space for the drain line running vertically down the wall. Since that same pipe needed to be moved from along the ductwork, I needed space under the left window for the same pipe. I decided to make one long, straight wall instead.

To make things easier, I decided to run the wall parallel to the 1st joist (about 16" from the foundation walls). This way I could secure the wall directly to the joist instead of adding blocking along the top.

As I started to build this wall, I was reminded of how much easier it is when you can just build full 8' sections with no obstacles! This wall has two windows, ductwork, 2" PVC (main drain from house), and the main support beam for the house to navigate around- all in the span of 15 feet!

Framing around windows

My first decision was how to frame around the windows. Since the wall is actually about 15" from the concrete basement wall (due to the ductwork & drain pipe), the windows will be recessed quite a bit. After I get the two glass block windows installed I may have to make some modifications to the framing.

For now, the important decision was how much to slope the drywall running from the bottom of the basement windows to the framed in wall. After considering how much vertical space I'd need for my projector screen, I decided to slope the window opening about 1 ½ inches from back to front. This meant the two studs below the window would be 70" while the rest would be full height. Here's how it turned out.

When you frame around a basement window, decide how you will enclose the area. I'll be drywalling the window well.

Framing the 2nd window

The second window was a bit more complicated. Since I needed to conceal pipes and the "make-up air" duct, I was going to lose ½ of the window. (The window will still be there, it will just be concealed behind the drywall.)

The main duct, and the fact that I needed to add blocking to secure the top of the wall complicated matters even more. Since I was unable to secure the top plate to the main (iron) beam of the house, I cut the two studs that would be near it about 1/8 too long. Although it took a lot of pounding to get the frame to fit under the beam, once I got it there it was a nice, tight fit.

After seeing the wall framed in, I think the ½ window is going to look stupid. I'll probably end up drywalling over it leaving just the one window in the theater area. It took me about as long to build and secure that 7' foot section as it did to build 24' feet of straight wall the week before! The entire 15' foot wall took about 10 hours to build. Finally, it's done!!!

This windo had some obstacles in the way. I'll probably end up just drywalling over it.

Progress Topics

Getting started

Down come the walls

1st mishap

Basement wall cracks

Lumber and tools

Starting construction - Hammer time!

Moving ductwork

Finishing the 1st wall

Around the corner

Five short walls

The big wall

Repairing cracks again!

Framing around windows

Framing the office

Finishing the office

Design decision

Framing support poles

Framing the last wall

See also...
Phase 2: Electrical and Drywall

Phase 3: Priming, painting and finshing touches

 

 

 

Home | Project Planning | Design | Construction | Home Theater | Our Progress | About this site


©2008-2012 Wilk Web Works
All content is protected by copyright. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
All rights reserved.