2018: Hobby Room Renovation, Part 1

Fortunately, while I'm no good at construction, I'm REALLY good at demolition! I can wield a sledge hammer and crow bar with the best of them. My main task in the reno was to rip out the old walls, de-nail, and save the lumber, and cut the old drywall into <16" widths. In BC, it now costs money to send drywall to the dump, so a common practice is to bury the old drywall behind the new drywall. More insulation, and passes the problem off to the next house owner, when they decide to renovate! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The reason for all this lumber, even though the studs are still in place, was that the previous owners were a bit lazy. when they installed the rec room, they framed over the foundation, floor to ceiling, which narrowed the width and length of the room by a total of 8". We decided to frame to the inner edge of the foundation instead, so we were able to re-use all of the lumber from the previous framing job. Also, the floor was raised by 2" using 2x4s, so we re-used them as well. the new floor was laid directly on the concrete 

 

 

Demolition complete. Time to start building. GORD!!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It took me about a week to do the demoltion. Gord is a BEAST when it comes to construction. First wall has been framed. As you can see, we only brought the framing out to the edge of the foundation, rather than 4" beyond it. My 11'4" wide rec room became a 12'0" hobby room. 

 

Back wall framed 

Half of the other side wall framed. We had to step this one out 'cause of the chimney stack. 

The other half done (almost). Had to step it out for the other chimney 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now Gord and his electrician son-in-law get to work on the electrical installation. We used extra circuits from our 200 Amp box to beef up the number of quad plug sockets. We went from ~10 wall plates (most only duplex) to ~30 quad wall plates. all installed at 40"😭I'm to old to be crawling on the floor looking for a socket to plug into) 

Janet's end of the new hobby room. Her sewing machines and quilting/embroidery supplies will be here. I had the electricians connect the wall power to the light switch, so that she can turn everything off with one switch. 

 

Ahhh, the drywall's arrived! 

My end of the hobby room. I have SEVEN quad sockets, one on every stud (every 16"). This is the wall that my S.F. lighting projects will go on. Like Janet's end, these can be turned off by the light switch on my side of the hobby room. 

 

 

 

Gord (L) and Rob (R), my 'electrcians'. Rob is a certified electrician; My friend. Gord, is his assistant. 

 

 

 

 

To secure the drywall at the foundation level we ran 1x4 over the 2x4 framing that Gord put in. It gives us something for the drywall to screw into. 

 

Now I had the (un)enviable task of disposing of the old drywall. All those chopped up pieces had to be fitted between the studs 

Old drywall disposed of. Now Gord is installing the Fibreglas Pink insulation. Between the old drywall and insulation, I think we have about R1000 there! 

 

 

 

Installing pot lighting electrical 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fiberglas and vapour barrier installed. Now it's time for me again. One thing I AM an expert in, is network cabling installation (from my former occupation as a network technical specialist). I installed and tested RJ-45 jacks (a total of 6) for my local area network (LAN), using CAT-7 cable (to support Gigabit ethernet speeds). Two are visible here, one each side of the window. 

 

Another one on the outside wall. This is where my TV, network workgroup switch, and other network attached devices will live. 

Two more RJ-45 ports at my end of the hobby room 

Bury some more drywall (saved me $75 on sending to the recyclers). 

 

Power installation finished on S.F. wall 

Two more RJ-45 jacks on the outside wall at my end of the hobby room. Another jack (not shown) on the dividing wall, where I'll plug in another workgroup switch 

Time for drywalling. We rented a drywall jack for a day to assist our installation of the ceiling drywall (show installed here). Gord has already started (with my assistance) to install the drywall on the walls. 

 

My end of the hobby room. The RJ-45 plate (dangling) is actually a quad plate, so in all, there are 9RJ-45 Cat-7 connections in our hobby room. We also have wireless, but the Cat 7 wired network connection is much faster than the 5G wireless connection. 

One of the RJ-45 receptacles installed. Just needs the cover to complete the connection. That will go on after painting. 

Drywall installation complete. 

 

Now the labourious task of mudding & sanding. Gord left much of that to me, to be done while he had gone home. 

 

Had to put some fans in to dry the mud. It too a couple of days
 

 

 

First coat of paint (white) applied 

Second coat of white (ceiling 

Pale yellow coat (walls) 

 

Painting finished. Gord left me to install the wall plates. First I plugged the RJ-45 jacks into the back of the wall plates and snapped the plate in position 

 

Six RJ-45 jacks connect to LAN wiring upstairs and other areas in the basement. Basement phone jack also here 

 

All wall plates installed (Janet's end) 

All wall plates installed, outside wall 

All wall plates installed outside wall, Janet's end 

Wall plates installed, interior wall Janet's end 

Looking down new hobby room from Janet's end - that's a F**K of a lot of power! 

 

Looking a Janet's end from my end. Note, she has a single light switch on her side of the door; I have FOUR. The bottom two control the pot lights. one for the outside rows of pots, the other for the middle row. Allows me to tailor the lighting for taking photos. The top two switches control the power. The left switch controls the interior wall power, and the right switch controls the outside wall power. I can turn off the lights in all my display cases with these two switches. 

Time to install crown molding. I left that up to Gord (one of his areas of expertise) He left the painting to me. 

Hobby room finished except for flooring, which arrived today. Installer is scheduled for tomorrow. 

Installed came today, and finished it in one day. 

Close up (Torlys vinyl flooring) 

 

 

 

Baseboard installed; taped, ready for grouting 

 

We'll call it done. Installer has to come back and install threshold in doorway. Elapsed renovation time: 1 week, demolition; 1 week for framing, & eletrical/network; 1 week drywall, mudding, sanding; 1 week painting, crown molding & baseboarding, 1 day floor installation. Total time ~4 weeks. We started each day around 8 AM and finished at 5 PM (I worked evenings as well) Total: 20 days @16 hrs = 320 hrs, call it 400 'cause I worked evenings painting, sanding etc, and we had 3 people (myself included) working on a couple of days. Labour cost: $1800 (for electrician); materials: (construction, electrical, paint, rentals: $3000.11; Floor (supplies and labour): $3459.25; total: $8259.36. Not a bad price for a complete renovation of a 12'x33' room! Lots of sweat equity spent, tho. 

 

 

Now, all the 'stuff' has to be put back! Janet's end. 

My end. 

 

 

A couple of new IKEA tables to replace the old office desk. 

 

My new power wall. I can now turn 7 quad outlets into power for 42 projects! Nice thing is - all of the projects are using LED's which are drawing in the order of 50-100 mA, and there's no other receptacles on this circuit, so I'm in no danger of exceeding 15A. 

Janet's half of the new hobby room. 

The 'entertainment' centre. Still lots of junk to get rid of (including the sofa bed) 

My end, tidied up. I opted for the 'T' arrangement of the IKEA tables (it didn't last) 

Bookshelves put back. I had glass cut and installed it to keep the dust off the models. 

View down the hobby room. The sofa bed acted as a room divider (until we got rid of it). 

 

 

 

Some of my collections. Stay tuned to part 2!