It's been almost a week.
Lots of stuff I have to put down, not a lot of time to do it. Or brain power.
Did I mention I'm sick? Again? Bleh. Have been since Sunday. Hope the cough wears off today, my throat is getting raw.
A few quickish notes, with more in-depth maybe tomorrow on my latest xbox project.
First, yes, we are finishing the basement. How much we have hired out and how much we do ourselves is up in the air. I'd like to do some myself to save some cash, but ultimately I want to have the hard labor paid for. This is where it gets tricky -- what people think is hard labor and what isn't is quite debatable.
Personal preferences:
framing - hire, but could be talked into doing myself with help from friends. I'd have to do a banister style railing at the bottom of the stairs that scares me. Everything else would be pretty standard.
heating/insulation - self w/ help from friends.
plumbing (bathroom) - (dependent on cash available) part self / part hire, though we'll see what happens here. Mostly I'm concerned with the hole in the cement floor for the drain. I did my own sprinklers, somewhat familiar with the concepts of plumbing. And It's not intimidating to me at all.
wiring - self, though I may enlist my former electrician uncle (and pay him if I have to) to help. Only really worried about the connections to the fuse box.
Sheet rock - hire. I don't want to haul sheetrock around, and if I hire it out it could be done in a weekend rather than dragging it out for forever doing it myself. I can also do the mudding, but same situation, it's probably worth the few hundred to have someone do it professionally.
paint - self
carpet - hopefully whoever we buy the carpet from will install it for us as well. We'll see on that one.
linoleum/tile in bathroom - self? I think we will probably do cheap linoleum here due to cost, heck I'd even be OK with just cement. My wife probably wouldn't though. heh. Maybe we could get by with just cement until we re-tiled the kitchen and used the old linoleum for the downstairs. Assuming you can do such a thing. heh.
Either way this should be a big project. I'm looking forward to it and I'm not. It's going to take a lot of time. It'll definitely be worthwhile once it's finished though. I'll keep you guys updated every step of the way.
In other news, I hate HATE the new HSA health insurance crap. Not only does it feel like I'm paying more for less, but it's more hassle to manage. And it requires an extra form for my taxes. :P Still in the almost complete stage on that one.
Better quit now, this is getting long.
Lastly here is a fun site I was directed to by a friend. Careful, it can suck away some time if you're into classic games. =)
3 comments:
When we did our basemnet in the old house I did almost everything myself. I thought the framing was one of the easier parts.
If I were do it again I probably would hire out the sheetrock, and for sure if I was sheetrocking the ceiling (didn't do the ceiling, saves on the taxes and just never got to it! And we never got around to doing anything more than large area rugs for carpet). I will never mud again, that parts is a pain.
I don't mind the supply plumbing, but I hate drain lines! And I usually do all my own electrical work. I did my own when I converted our old house from fuses to circuit breakers. That was not a fun one..
I would never attempt vinyl flooring myself. You ony have one shot at cutting it properly. I don't think it is reuseable either. And that crap is expensive. You can do the vinyl tiles though, that would be easier and probably cheaper. I really wanted ceramic tile in our bathroom, but I ended up doing vinyl mostly because I was in a huge hurry. Our house had CARPET in the bathroom, previous owners had two four year old boys. GROSS.
I love home improvements if you couldn't tell :)
I'm sure my husband can help with a lot of it, thought what I'm not sure, but I know he can do tile! It's not so expensive if you do it yourself. I love volunteering him! :)
Ooooo! hey Gingerstory.... WE ACCEPT! Tell Mr. Ginger that too, he might wanna know what he's being volunteered for!
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