Technology + chaotic = Technotica

Long time no posting - been too busy working on our pet project over the past week. Earlier last week Matt and I finally finished his office. Doing the walls in this room took us all last week to complete. Patch - prime - texture - prime again - paint 1st coat - paint 2nd coat took a lot of time. We also ran into the problem with the drywall paper bubbling underneath the primer and paint. So we had to go to Sherwin Williams and pick up some sealer primer. But now it looks really nice, like a real room!

From Basement Renovation Project

From Basement Renovation Project

Another productive weekend from last week. Thanks to Justin who graciously offered his home improvement skills, we were able to lay in the new vinyl floors in the laundry room and bathroom. We started Saturday afternoon and it took quite a bit of prep work to ready the floor for the vinyl. Also took a few trips to Lowe's to get everything we needed. The official count for the number of Lowe's trips is up to 5.

Justin's truck came in handy for hauling the floor and new toilet from Lowe's. We had to remove the leftover adhesive from the old floor in both rooms as well as fill cement holes, bleach and mop the floor, and thoroughly dry and vacuum the floor. We didn't actually get around to putting the floor in and finishing the job until Sunday afternoon. Take a look for yourself:

From Basement Renovation Project

From Basement Renovation Project

From Basement Renovation Project

From Basement Renovation Project

Saturday night we started prepping for pulling ethernet into my office upstairs and the room off to the kitchen upstairs. Since everything is a mess we figured it would be a good time to pull cable. It was too bad that my cable didn't get here in time for the weekend, but we wouldn't have had enough time to install it anyway. I ordered new speakers, ethernet cable, speaker wire, a patch panel, face plates and jacks from Monoprice.com. This is the first time I've used them, but their prices can't be beat and customer service and shipping was fast.

Sunday we finished installing the floors by cutting, fitting, and adhering the vinyl. Of course the most nerve wracking part is the cutting. Overall I would say the process of installing the flooring really wasn't that bad. I don't think I would do a glued floor, as the large pieces of vinyl are really hard to maneuver around.

The glueless installation is the way to go as all we had to do was tape near doorways and under the washer and dryer. It is also a very economical choice. For approximately $200 (15 linear feet) we had new flooring in 2 rooms. Easy grocery list for materials too - floor, vinyl tape, cleaning supplies, and cement filler (optional). I would not recommend it for a large area or high traffic area since it is basically a floating floor. It would also be very hard to put a seam in since it does shift and will pull up with a vacuum cleaner.

Since the bathroom was such a scene of 'carnage' from the flooding issues we've had, I made it my mission this week to get it cleaned up. When we tore up the floor in the bathroom on Sunday it was still damp and icky underneath. The walls also were very dirty. When we installed the bathroom vinyl we bleached and cleaned the floor so that was nice and clean. On Monday I cleaned the walls with bleach and elbow grease and painted. I also had to cut, prime, and paint a piece of foam board to fit behind the toilet. The look is complete - tada!:

From Basement Renovation Project

From Basement Renovation Project

I wasn't planning on painting this room, however like everything else we've done in the basement it came under the 'Hey, while we're at it clause.' When Matt and I got off work on Monday we drove straight to Lowe's (trip #5) to pick out paint. I originally was going to paint it a really brilliant shade of green, but I chickened out at the last minute and went with a deep taupe/chocolate. I really like how it looks since it makes the bathroom look like a real room in the house rather than the basement room we shoved a toilet and sink in.

Matt has been coming down with a cold all week and has spent the last 2 days at home getting over it. Great timing of course so I've been trying to get the last bits done on my own. I didn't have enough time to install the baseboard in the bathroom since the carpet people were coming soon. Yesterday I got everything out of Matt's office into the bathroom and the remaining stuff from the living room into the furnace and laundry rooms. I also washed all the walls down in the living room and stairwell since they were coated with dust and lots of spider webs. This was the only room in the basement I didn't repaint since I like the color and let's face it I'm tired of painting! I'll retouch the paint once some the carpet is installed.

Today we had marked on our calendar as the installation day for the carpet, however I entered it in the calendar wrong and the actual install date is tomorrow. So tonight Matt and I will install the new rear in-wall speakers and ethernet.

You may be asking why we are installing all this cable in house - why aren't you doing everything wireless? Well not everything runs wireless networking in the house. Our Dish Network box requires network access to update channel listings and the DVD player uses ethernet to do firmware updates. We also need it for the PS2 and for our future PS3. Matt and I also have desktop computers that don't have wireless cards. IN the near future we will be switching our landline phone to a VoIP solution like Vonage. Also we get increased network performance from running 1 GB Cat 6 than our 54 Mbps wireless AP. That and its cool - that's a very important reason!

When thinking about our home theater setup I wanted a better system for our speaker wire. Before we had speaker wire going around the baseboards and up the walls to the rear speakers. This looked really ugly and was prone to getting knocked around from the vacuum. So using the 'Hey, while we're at it clause' we decided to do an in-wall installation that will look clean and professional. It will also last us a very long time and could potentially add value to our house. The same can be said for running ethernet - Network access in every room of the house and home theater built-ins can add tremendous value in this day and age.

Next week we'll start moving stuff back to the basement and complete finishing touches such as installing the toilet and baseboards and paint touch up.

At this point I'd say that we are approximately 80% complete with our renovation and after next week we will be about 90-95% done. I say that because we will not have Matt's desk or the laundry room cabinets in before Thanksgiving. It is really great that we're so near completion on this - it really feels nice to have a level of our house that is fresh, clean, and pretty even! Of course the rest of the house needs a makeover since its been essentially abandoned for 3 weeks. I will be a cleaning fiend until Thanksgiving arrives!