Laminate Floor in Basement

We originally wanted to install carpet in the basement to make it warm and cosy.  However, I can't install carpet.  This means that the price of carpet is double what the sticker price says per square foot.  Laminate flooring I can install myself so that cuts the price in half, and we found this floor for less than a dollar a square foot.  This made the floor much more affordable, the laminate flooring we picked was Kaindl 10mm Lisbon Maple. This is what we are looking at now.

We are very happy with the way it turned out.  The dark floor completes the look we were going for.  I should mention that this is in the basement so we put down a dri-core sub floor and then a cork under pad with a vapour barrier before the laminate when down.  This should provide significant protection from the concrete floor in terms of temperature and moisture. I have a bit more work to do in the closet and the built in toy shelves.  Hopefully in a few months we can work on some trim and baseboards.

The above picture is the hallway leading from the office to the main part of the basement.  The stairs coming down are just to the left.  I thought it might be fun to remind everyone how things look before we got started.

I am thinking that we have some improvement, the kids are very excited to bring the TV and the Wii back downstairs.  I need to remember to schedule the final electrical inspection this week.

Thanks for following this project.

New Bathroom is finished!

Busy weekend around here that go all the doors painted 2 coats of white and all the door knobs installed and a second coat of paint on the walls. The white doors helped the contrast with the wall colour which we were getting worried was a little too light, so on our second coat on the walls we darkened it by 25%. The lesson here is to trust you wife when it comes to the colours as it will all work out in the end. I also connected all the outlets and put all the covers on, so all the electrical is finished.

I am mostly excited about my new bathroom.  It is always nice when you work on all the rough in stuff get the drywall up, paint it all realise that everything is where it needs to be.  Well almost.

This bathroom is a long story that begins with the flange in the floor for the toilet.  I wanted to get a proper one that sat on the outside of the pipe coming up from the ground.  The guy at home depot told me that I would need to bust up the concrete around the pipe, which sounded fun to me.  The problem was that the dri-core sub-floor was finished a little too nicely around the pipe so I had to bust that out a bit first.  Then slowly I broke out enough concrete to believe that I would be able to get the flange in place. I cut the pipe flush with the dri-core as it was all glued in place and the walls were build on top.  I installed my laminate floor and tried to dry fit the flange only to discover that it was 1/2 off the floor.  This of course would put my toilet hovering off the floor.  So I took everything apart and cut up a few pieces of ply wood, nailed them to the dri-core and then put down my underpad and laminate again.  This time it was perfect. I went to put in my toilet only to discover that my water supply tap ended up directly behind the toilet.  Oops.  This prevented the toilet from fitting in.  So I turned the water off again, took apart the supply and cut as much off as I dared to and put it all back together.  The toilet just fits with a hair length of space between the supply shut off and the toilet (at least I am not wasting any space).  The end result is pretty nice.

Our biggest problem now is that we have hit our predetermined budget cap and we don't have a floor, ceiling or the trim and baseboards.  We are now looking around for a cheap carpet and installer as I have no idea how to install carpet.  So if anyone knows where I could find something please let me know.  We figure we will put in the carpet and then go through a "budget recovery" period before we finish off the rest.

Well that is how far we are it is really looking lit we may actually pull this off.  Our next challenge is the carpet once that is installed I will put up some more pictures.

Basement reno has paint!

We have finished painted the main areas of the basement and I have finished all the lights and outlets.  My brother was wondering where I was at so I thought I write up another post.

These are the steps leading down into the basement.  The colour is a light taupe, I wish that I would have taken earlier pictures of this area because this wall looks way better then it did before.  It being the basement, many things have gone up and down these stairs and these walls had the marks to show for it.

Turn the corner at the bottom of the stairs and you can see the lights, the camera didn't do so well with the bright lights but you get the idea.  I still am not quite sure how I am going to finish off the ceiling, but we will tackle that later.

This is the main area of the basement with the toy area on the left and the TV area on the right.  The toy area has to pot lights in the ceiling and the TV area has 4 pot lights and 4 wall sconces on different switches.  The sconces are dimmable to provide better movie watching lighting.

After all the paint was on the walls (and going back to fix a few spots) I give my mudding sanding a B+.  A few spots I wish were better but over all I am happy with the job.The next big challenge will be working out all the fixtures in the bathroom.  We have all the pieces I just need to put them all together (and make sure they don't leak).

Basement Renovation Update

It has been a few weeks now and I thought I would give a bit of an update on the basement renovations.  Sometimes I am excited on how far I am and other times I get frustrated that there is so much more to get done.  I have all the drywall up and the taping is done as well as the first coat of mud (well almost).

This is the hallway from the bottom of the steps towards the rest of the basement.  There will be 2 wall sconces and an outlet along the right hand wall.  The left wall there is a door to the space under the steps for storage and the pocket door leading into the furnace room.

The picture on the left will be an off season storage closet mainly for winter coats, hats and mitts.  A mistake that we wanted to avoid was maxing out the living space but forgetting about storage.  We are hoping we won't have to dig through piles of junk to find the "sandals box" next spring.  We are thinking about putting 2 bars across the back end (one high and one low) for coats and stuff.  The space in front can be buckets for other stuff.

The picture on the right is what the bathroom looks like now.  Not too exciting just yet but we have a bit more work to get done there.  I did successfully punch a hole out of the side of the house for the ceiling fan in the bathroom. The fan/light combo that we bought is all wired up and the vent is securely connected.  Now just to get the rest finished off so I can liven up those circuits.

The left picture is the area where we plan to have all the toys for the kids.  My dad and I built in the toy shelves to maximize the space we had available.  The shelves are probably my favorite part so far.

On the right is the space for the television and the couch. We are also planning on purchasing one of the electric fire places to go against the far wall beside the electrical panel.  The electrical panel is covered by the tiny closet in the back right of this picture.

Well that is it for now.  I am guessing the next update will be when we have some paint on the walls.  I have some hours of mudding and sanding before we get to that.  I am probably not the best at that part of the project but I am stubborn enough to see it through.

Todd Cowan can Read the Minds of Woolwich Residents

The casino debate rages on and I want to continue to encourage people to contact their municipal governments in Kitchener, Waterloo and Woolwich as well as their local MPs and the Premier.  If you have an open letter that you want me to post here please contact me.  Premier Kathleen Wynne has stated that Casinos will not be built in municipalities that do not want them.  From the debates that have gone on in our region I can still confidently say that the majority of residents DO NOT WANT a casino in this region.   The majority of respondents to the Woolwich survey (60%+) said they do not want a casino.  Most of the delegations that have been presented at Kitchener city council has been against a casino and from the evidence that I have read Waterloo is in the same boat.

Ken Seiling the Regional Chair of Waterloo Region says that he feels compelled to bring the issue to a vote in Regional Council because of the pressure put on him by residents.  The majority of people are getting frustrated by the continued conversations that keep saying the same things.  Those who are in favour of a casino development stand to directly profit from the development. Compound this with Mayor Cowan's proclaimed ability to know what everyone who is not voicing an opinion wants.  Mayor Cowan has said repeatedly that the "vocal minority" doesn't speak for all of Woolwich. 

"Definitely in cases when you have something like this, you hear the vocal minority," Cowan told The Morning Edition host Craig Norris Thursday. "I don't think at this point, we'll be reconsidering our decision," he said. 

So according to his logic the people who are the "silent majority" really want a casino.  They want one so bad that they can't be bothered to come by and say so OR maybe they DON'T want a casino and feel that there concerns have already been voiced by others compound that with the fact Cowan doesn't seem to care any how.  This crazy logic by Cowan enrages me.  How can you be a politician and NOT listen to what your constituents are telling you? This is some serious crazy logic.  You are an elected official that means the will of the people.  Not, well you see I want this so I will find a bunch of people who aren't talking and just pretend they support me!

As a society and as a region we will not profit.  The net jobs gained will be nill, the pay-off will go directly to funding the problems it causes and we have no control over what OLG will decide next.

I know that the mayor of a small municipality is not a glorious job and it probably doesn't pay well, but there must be someone who can do a better job of it then Cowan.  If your interested the candidate registration opens on January 6, 2014 and ends on September 8 and the 2014 municipal elections in Ontario, will be held on October 27, 2014.  If I had any idea about anything in municipal politics I would consider running myself.  I just hope that a strong community leader comes out of the wood work because this current council is not workable.

You have a listen to this Mayor and tell me what you think?  He talks about the fact of having a low taxation rate but then complains about infrastructure deficit.  He laughs when the question of revenue sharing is discussed pretending that the effects of a casino stop at the border. He compares a casino to going to a Maple leafs game.  Sorry Mr. Cowan you do not inspire confidence.

Basement Renovations

This past week my Dad came down and we worked in my basement. We want to create more finished space so that the kids can have a play room that doesn't need to be kept perfectly clean.  The images below are what my basement looked like a few weeks before he came.

As with all basements it was a drop place for all kinds of stuff.  Every once in a while we push the junk back to make some sort of playing area for the kids.  This was already a reduced amount from when we first moved in.  So I started by taking a lot of stuff to the thrift store and getting rid of broken toys and other things to the garbage.  So a few weeks of sorting and relocating all this stuff this is what the basement looked like when dad arrived.

We purchased a vanity and a toilet to help us figure out the framing and spacing for the bathroom.  With this as a clean slate and 4 or 5 trips to Home Depot we were able to frame out the entire basement.  We put in a furnace / utility room, an off season cloths closet, a bathroom, small play area and a television room.  It was the best use of space we could come up with.  I am currently working on putting in the electrical but this is what it looked like after my dad left.

I am running all the wires now and then I will be getting an electrical inspection.  Not much to show until the drywall is up so that will be a few weeks yet.  The next big adventure will be putting in a fan in the bathroom and figuring out some way of venting it to the outside.  Punching holes through outside walls is always an adventure.

Well that is what I have been up to this week.

Waterloo, Kitchener, Woolwich and Casinos from the twitterverse

I wanted to post a collection of tweets from the last 24hours dealing with casino debates occurring across the province. Some are local some are not but a casino has the same stripes regardless of where it lives.

#Casino input to date: 1000+ survey, email, letter, Facebook messages. Have your say: waterloo.survey.esolutionsgroup.ca/TakeSurvey.asp… @citywaterloo
— Karen Coviello Scian (@karenscian) April 18, 2013

I would rather have a strong #Casino position - supported by 1000's of voices - than an apathetic one: Have your say! waterloo.survey.esolutionsgroup.ca/TakeSurvey.asp…
— Karen Coviello Scian (@karenscian) April 18, 2013

Finally!I hope blatant corruption of the #Liberals, #OLG, and their #casino cohortsrevealed @racing_future @rjgacem.therecord.com/news/canada/ar…
— Blair Burgess (@Desibesi) April 11, 2013

#Casino debate: How much of a tax break is a suicide worth? @queensu prof emeritus Dan Usher wonders #ygk bit.ly/XE5keo
— The Whig-Standard (@WhigStandard) April 11, 2013

Thanks for helping share this information! "@jimwaterloo: Give @citywaterloo your feedback on #casino here waterloo.survey.esolutionsgroup.ca/TakeSurvey.asp…"
— Brenda Halloran (@MayorBrenda) March 30, 2013

Listen Up Kitchener! "@richard_florida: Casinos = City-Ruiners - @huffpostcanada - huffingtonpost.ca/richard-florid…"
— Erin Rudland (@ErinRudland) April 18, 2013