Basement Build aka RC and Theater rooms!

[FastEddy]

NO HEAT!
It makes the snail trails dry up and get stuck. You want it COLD! Now you know why they are made of brass.

 

[sweetdiesel]

NO HEAT!
It makes the snail trails dry up and get stuck. You want it COLD! Now you know why they are made of brass.

Snail trails....nice visual Ed! LMFAO

 

[Monkey Wrench]

And, should it be heated or not?

I like the ones with automatic lubrication systems installed!

 

[godale03]

Holly poop 1,700sf is 2 times larger then the average apartment and 300 sf larger then the average house in America. With that much space you have a lot of room to whatever you want. I'm envious.

I am extreamly lucky to be able to have that space. The house I sold this past November was 600 SF smaller than the space I am currently working on. When they dug the foundation they made the entire thing basement space, minus the garage. It is an entire level that we get to work with. The only thing that kind of stinks is that the basement is entirely underground and we get no natural light. Still I have nothing to complain about.

Now as far as the stripper pole... I am figuring it should go somewhere near the bar...... and definitely unheated brass!

Tom

 

[godale03]

Hey Guys,

Here is the latest round of pictures......

Here is a shot of the area that will either house a pool table or a train table. I am still undecided... it is wired for a train table just in case though.

Here is resesed area by the stairs that we still have no idea what to do with. We have two resesed lights on the ceiling area.

Here is a look at the theater area. The two poles will be housed in a wooden column with power and speaker outlets for the rear channels.

Here is another look at the theater area. This is how it will look from the theater seating that we have on order. The TV will mount in the center of the far wall.

This is a shot of the bathroom shower, which is all that is in place at the moment.

This is a shot of what will be the storage room. Here is where the HVAC unit, breakers, and Low Voltage hub will be.

This is a picture of what will be the front of the bar area.

Here is a picture of what will be the RC room. It is wired for Phone, Network and a wall mounted TV. I am also working on a design to put wall mounted cabinets and two work benches in place.

Well this is where it slows down a bit. They still need to come and finish the drywall and then paint. Hopefully they are painting in the next week or so. Then I am going to put the tile in the bathroom, behind the bar, and the RC room myself so that should take a weekend or so. Hopefully we will be moving furniture in sometime the middle of August. I will keep my fingers crossed! Take care guys.

Tom

 

[HeartBreak]

A solution to your pool/train table delima; Simply attach chains to the corners of the train layer, and raise it up to reveal the pool table. You can visualize it from there.

Nice basement; I'm definately jealous!

 

[digger]

I think I could vacation in some of the basement's you guys have.

I have a full basement, but my house is only 24 x 50? One part is a garage. The room I work on my cars and planes is about 10 x 12? Sounds like plenty of space to work on something, but get a few storage shelves...
I'm starting to get it straightened out though.

Basement is going to be killer Tom. Shouldn't take that long to finish the drywall. You'll be in before ya know it. Need to order a R/C kit so ya can try out the room.

 

[FastEddy]

Looking great! Its nice to see them moving quickly. Soon enough and you will be enjoying it.

 

[NvNitro]

Looks sweet Tom, I'm jealious. My new place has a garage of 500 sq feet, but nothing like that. You got a generator somewhere on the property, man..all those outlets. Looks real nice. Keep the pics coming.

 

[godale03]

I think I could vacation in some of the basement's you guys have.

I have a full basement, but my house is only 24 x 50? One part is a garage. The room I work on my cars and planes is about 10 x 12? Sounds like plenty of space to work on something, but get a few storage shelves...
I'm starting to get it straightened out though.

Basement is going to be killer Tom. Shouldn't take that long to finish the drywall. You'll be in before ya know it. Need to order a R/C kit so ya can try out the room.

Yeah I am definitely wanting to get a kit to officially "break in" the RC room. I have already been preping the wife for that! LOL

It has been coming along real nice the last couple of weeks, although we are at a near standstill. The drywall finishers have not come back since the second coat, almost two weeks ago! We are also having some problems with some accent lighting for the bar. We would like to have a set of three pendants on a track that hang over the bar counter. Well when we did the electrical walk through I told the electrician what I wanted and he said he understood and they put a box in the ceiling for the purpose. Well what he thought I meant was regular track lighting, so he only put in one box. Well not knowing a damn thing about lighting at the initial walkthrough I figured the Electrician or the General Contractor would ask questions if they were unclear as to what I wanted, as well as present me with some options. Wrong again I was! I knew nothing of low voltage lighting or what kind of pendant lighting was on the market. So now we are in a situation where we have a 120 box in the ceiling in the wrong place as well as having to tear up the ceiling to put in two more electrical boxes to support the other two pendants. Then I get a call from the general contractor saying to go back by the lighting warehouse there is some lighting options that were not originally presented to us. Well we liked one of the options and were ready to make it happen, when we noticed that the kit only comes with 4ft of railing.... which is to short. So now we are back at square one. I hate having them tear up such nice drywall work. I am sure they can patch it up ok... but the contractor said that we would be able to see the patch work and that makes me hesitant to go down that road. Low volatage would have worked nicely had I known that was an option early on. I do not have the cables in place for low voltage and no place to hide the transformer. So I am now official frustrated. Thanks for listening guys.

Tom

 

[FastEddy]

Its all the little things that will get to you. The "Big" part of the build out is all done quickly the rest is all about how you want it to look. Dont make yourself crazy. There are some great products on the market and with enough research and time you will get what you like. Trust me when I say we all want it done and out of the way but dont rush it. It will be finished soon enough and you will look back and be glad you didn't settle for something you didn't want.

With the drywall, there is no reason they can't add more boxes and have it look great. Look at the process. They join large sheets together without seeing the line, they can do the same with a smaller unit. If all else is out of the question, make them take down the entire sheet and do it over the right way. IMO the contractor is putting his mistake on your shoulders. YOU ARE PAYING HIM AND HE NEEDS TO DO WHAT YOU WANT THE WAY YOU WANT IT!! Hes looking at the time and money it will cost him out of the original bid to fix his mistake.

I have gotten all my lighting from these folks and I have to say, they are second to none in service, quality and price.
http://www.lightingshowplace.com/decor/home.pl

Out of 12 lighting fixtures I got one that wasn't to my liking, it has a small scratch on it. They sent me out another the same day I called and instead of sending me a return tag to ship the other back, they told me to keep it....

Get what you want now. Dont fool yourself into thinking you can change it, add it, or fix it later. It will most-likely never happen. If the contractor thinks he can push you around to save him some time or money, he will. It might be the first issue but it wont be the last. Dont try to be the "Nice Guy" draw the line and let him know who the boss is.

 

[godale03]

Thanks for the advice Ed. I really appreciate it. I do try to be the "nice guy" and most of the time I have no problems, but like you said, the builder will push if he feels he can. So with that in mind I geared up to meet with the builder last night and go over the paint, the lighting and the rest of the trim work. I think it went ok. I was able to convey what exactly I wanted without geting beligerant or angry. I was able to keep the nice guy thing going but still get my point across. Of course I had just handed him his second draw of $20,000, so I am sure he was happy. Damn it is hard to let go of that kind of money sometimes.... especially when you know it is cash that you have free and clear and not something you are paying intrest on to pay back. Anyway we have a plan A, and B so I think either way we go (Low Voltage, or individual Pendants) we are going to get the look we are going for. Takes a little off of the mind, I must say. Best case senerio at this point is that we will have paint on the walls early next week, although if we have to go with individual pendants we will have to cut a few extra holes in the drywall so that will push back the painting just a bit. All in all I am hoping to have paint on the walls in two weeks. I figure I will plan on the worst case to stave off disapointment, and hopefully be pleasantly surprised! LOL I will take more pics as the progress moves forward. Once the paint is done then the brick hearth and Oak mantle go in and then the flooring. Wish me luck guys!

Tom

 

[FastEddy]

Sounds like you have it covered with the contractor. Dont have to be an ass to press your point. They are in it for the money and at the end of the day you need to live there and they go home. The way I would have played the game is to pay the contractor 10K of the 20 and the other 10k when the crew showed up to start work. Its like leading the horse to water. As long as you feel good that hes on the right track all is well and should be just fine.

Dont make a final payment hopefully 20% or more of the total until 4-6 weeks after the job is totally done. If you do, and there are any issues, forgotten work, or other things, he will have no motivation to get it all fixed quickly and you may possibly have to take him to court to get it done. Its much better to have the shoe on your foot. There will always be something that is broken, isn't right, or forgoten.You have to make sure you have their attention so it gets done. I know it sounds shady but its the way its done.

 

[Monkey Wrench]

Tom, just present to them what I presented to my contractors when I had my basement done and this has been statistically proven:

Individuals that receive poor service or poor quality work are more likely to tell ten friends of that negative experience without being asked versus telling ten people of a positive experience.

I simply shared that with my contractor as a courtesy. Never had an issue after that!


Oh, and I found this for ya as well: http://cgi.ebay.com/Removable-Porta...ryZ82620QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

It's not a bad price and even comes with an instructional DVD!

 

[FastEddy]

NICE FIND!!
Its a must have for the newlywed couple.
We need to all chip in and get it for them as a wedding present.

 

[Monkey Wrench]

You can count me in!

 

[godale03]

Yeah that was my plan... To hold the final payment until all work was completed and to my satisfaction. At least the contract stated that I could hold on to the final payment until I was satisfied with the final product. The contractor is a stand up guy, and came highly recomended. So far it has been his subs that are the problem. I think all should go well.


I did just get some good news though. The lighting that we originally wanted to put in but couldn't because it only came in 4ft track lengths will now be available in September. The question is... how do I make sure that the electrician comes out to install the fixture once it comes in? The work should be completed by then and it looks like the fixture would not be in by the time the basement is finished. Any suggestions as to what you guys would do? Thanks guys.

Tom

P.S.

Great Find Monkey!

 

[Monkey Wrench]

Money talks, brother! Hold a perentage of the final payment until it is ALL DONE! If they balk, tell them fine, reduce the overall cost by the amount it will take to call an electrician out to complete it and thank them!

 

[godale03]

Money talks, brother! Hold a perentage of the final payment until it is ALL DONE! If they balk, tell them fine, reduce the overall cost by the amount it will take to call an electrician out to complete it and thank them!

Sounds like a reasonable solutiong to me! I just got off the phone with the contractor and we talked about what would happen if we should go with the special order stuff. He said that it happens all the time, especially on new houses he said they will come back. He said he has been back to houses to put lighting up as much as 10 weeks after the U and O had been signed off on as well as the contract completed. We shall see. My wife picked up the new catalogs today and we will look at them tonight. She said that there are many more options that are available now. Thanks guys.

Tom

 

[neobart]

Tom, just present to them what I presented to my contractors when I had my basement done and this has been statistically proven:

Individuals that receive poor service or poor quality work are more likely to tell ten friends of that negative experience without being asked versus telling ten people of a positive experience.

I simply shared that with my contractor as a courtesy. Never had an issue after that!


Oh, and I found this for ya as well: http://cgi.ebay.com/Removable-Porta...ryZ82620QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

It's not a bad price and even comes with an instructional DVD!

Great find MW. But why would you want to take it down?:thumbup:


Oh, and does she come with the package?