Frame the Beam

Hook Santa up with a Bud

Hope you all have a good Christmas and make it over on New Years, I plan to post on Friday and most of next week.

Yesterday I got called shortly after 5am that a monitor used on the air had just gone blank out of nowhere. Some phone troubleshooting did not do any good so I got kinda dressed and headed into work. I took a long lunch and got my shower and deodorant and stuff. So at 3pm when I got a notice the University was closing I was in my truck in seconds.

Heath left work at 3 too but had to work from home when she got there. So I headed downstairs to get a start on the basement wall project for the night. It’s been a while since I have talked much about it so I’ll remind you where I am. I took out the deer wall, took out the drop ceiling and the lights and cut back one vent.

Things to note in this pic: At the top you see part of the drywall that covers the i-beam, then you see the vent I need to keep in the ceiling so the upstairs bedrooms get heat/ac, then down from that is the basement vent that I have cut at the wall and plan to put a wall vent there.

So the next step is to build a frame around the I-beam and other vent so we can drywall around them and then move on to wiring and dry walling the entire ceiling. Everything I have read says to do the ceiling first and I want to get some ceiling done so I can keep the heat out of the storage area and shop and focus it into living spaces.

My current solution to keep heat in living spaces:

I got started on the frame around the I-beam and vent (we are calling this section “the beam”) by doing a bunch of measuring and decided my frame needed to come down 10.25 inches and run the full 12 feet of the room. Then would need to be 28 inches over from the pre existing portion of the beam.

The left of this pic is the drywall ceiling that is already there, then the other side of the beam, you see the big red i-beam then two 2x4s and then a piece of trim that I took down and the vent is on the right.

I cut 11 2x4s at 7inches each in the shop with the circular saw then nailed them to my 12 foot 2×4 every 16 inches. Then Heath showed up and we nailed this thing to the ceiling joists 28 inches out from the existing part of the beam. Nailing over your head is a lot of fun and makes your arms feel great.

Too bad you can’t see Heath’s giant grin.

We got it securely attached and then added another 12 foot 2×4 below it creating a sideways mini ladder running alongside the vent. Our arms were tired and our stomachs growling so we just barely got it attached and then headed upstairs for dinner. We steamed some rice and diced all our leftover steak into a skillet full of onions, carrots, broccoli, green peppers and mushrooms.

Here is the mini ladder and me hammering, see how hungry I was.

We gobbled up dinner then headed to Home Depot. I kind of wanted to get 3 5/8 12 foot sheets of drywall but it was raining and I didn’t want to mess with it in the rain. Instead we got insulation and looked over the lights. Deciding what to do for lights down there is not easy. We could do track, recessed, ceiling, florescent, or wall lights and there are advantages to each for different situations and effects.  It is looking like we will end up on a combination.

Or just put a bunch of hooks in the ceiling and move drop lights around as needed. You can see the vent where I cut it off in this shot.

Once home we got busy putting up the insulation. It was easy to feel the cold coming in from the ceiling on the exterior walls before we got started. Actually so much cold was coming in I had stuffed a bunch of old t-shirts and boxers in the holes right after taking down the ceiling.

We took out the clothes and replaced them with 1-2 layers of insulation all along the exterior walls.It seemed to make the basement feel warmer immediately but I think that was just because I had come in from the cold then started working and feeling cold things become room temperature.

Once we had killed 1 of the rolls of insulation we moved back to the beam and got busy nailing all the little boards to the big long one. It went a lot easier this time and quickly the thing was sturdy enough for me to hang from.

We talked over lights and floor and measured square footages for a while then it was about 9:00 and I was ready for bed.  I was tired and fell asleep well before 10pm.