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

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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 >Lumber and tools

Lumber and tools

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I decided to start in the back, right corner of the basement and work my way around clockwise. This way I'll get some "wall building" practice before I build the most prominent wall- a 28 footer that stretches the length of the room.basement floor plan


The downside of this approach is that I had quite a few obstacles- pipes and main duct to deal with right off the bat. Since the first section of the wall has lots of copper pipes to work around, I thought about nailing the top and bottom plates, and then toe nailing the studs (see method 2 of How to frame a wall).

In the end, I decided to build it on the floor, cut out the necessary parts of the top plate, then tip it up and nail it into place. I bought a compound miter saw, a jigsaw, and my 1st load of lumber over the weekend.

Basement remodeling tools

DeWalt DW703 10" compound miter sawFor the miter saw, I went with a DeWalt 10" because that's the brand I've seen a lot of the pros use. Also, it was comparable in price ($197) to most of the otherSkil 5.0 Amp Orbital Jigsaw quality brands. The jigsaw is a Skil 5.0 Amp Orbital Jigsaw. I went with it over the DeWalt because it was half as much as the cheapest DeWalt. Hopefully, it will work out OK. I spent over $400 on my two trips to Lowe's.


Lumber tip
: Many people just 'eyeball' the 2x4s they're purchasing to see if they're straight. A good way to make sure is to place each one on the floor and roll it to all four sides. It takes a little time, but you're sure to end up with straighter boards which will make framing much easier! A little bow on the long side of the board is OK, but avoid the ones that are twisted or bowed on the short end.

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

 

 

 

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