Day 7 - Upper Shelf & Pine Panelling

Day 7,8,9 ish all merged into one post here.  With the push on I took a day of vacation to work on the basement (which turned into 3 hours vacation basement and 4.5 hours of office work, oh well), worked a few evenings, took a short day at the office to work on the basement to make up for the first vacation day, and wrapped it all up Saturday which was deadline day.

Disclaimer

The usual disclaimers apply -- I'm not a professional and this is total Do It Yourself (DIY) project.  Seek professional input prior to attempting this project.  It is NOT an easy project and requires a significant amount of work, knowledge and capability.  Make sure you fully understand all relevant design, structural, and geotechnical aspects, including the building code and applicable bylaws prior to starting.  Any doubts, hire someone qualified :)  We've had good success (so far), but that isn't a prediction of success at other sites.

The top shelf was made differently than the bottom.  Inside of built in place, with 16" joists (and hangers) I built it like this:

• Frame was built as complete as possible, than lifted the shelf into place.  By building ahead of time, it was much easier to use screws to fasten the joists and didn't need joist hangers.
• Back 2x4 ledger was bolted to the wall.  
• 24" centres were used for the joists as this shelf didn't need to hold a person nearly as often as the bottom shelf, nor will it have a washing machine or drier on it.

The top shelf became  the "use up the scrap wood" initiative.  I was tired of back and forth trips for lumber to Rona (thank's Dave for those gift cards!), and also tired of wood sitting is the garage for years.  I was laminating two, 1/2" pine pieces into 1" lumber for blocking, I used up a 2x4x12 cedar piece from the first Front Porch project, used up some PT from the Play Structure project, etc.  In terms of 2x4 off cuts, the biggest pieces at the end of this job left were a few 6" pieces, but more generally only 1-2" off-cuts.  I was quite proud! 

Once the frame was installed, 1/2" plywood was installed quickly.  I paid little attention to getting to perfectly lined up at the front as I just used a circular saw to cut the front flush at the end.

We found 5/16" x 4" v-board pine wall panel at lowes on sale.  This was great, since it was a fairly cheap wall covering, and meant no drywall, taping or mud!  For a little insight into my mind, here is costing out the drywall vs wood:

Wall height	wall length	sq feet
3	28	84
7	28	196
7	28	196
7	25	175
	total sq footage	716.1	sq feet
	drywall cost	0.25	$/sq foot
	rona pine	0.55	$/sq foot
	lowes pine (on sale)	0.46	$/sq foot
	drywall	179	$
	dry wall delivery	50	$
	dry wall mud+tape	50	$
	drywall cost	279	$
	lowes pine	332
	rona pine	394	$, assumes free truck use
	extra cost to use rona pine	115	$
	extra cost to use lowes pine	53	$

At $53 extra for wood, it was a no brainer for me to go with the pine.

If you haven't already, catch up with this project by reading about the other parts of this project (clicking will open the link in a new window):
Day 1 -  Chipping out a the sump
Day 2 - Chipping out the perimeter trenches
Day 3 - Placing the Waterguard and dimpled membrane
Day 4 - Plumbing the sump and taping the membrane
Day 5 - Pouring the concrete floor
Day 6 - Membrane and lower shelf

And now for the photos.

Here you can see building the upper shelf frame.  It did require a little creativity working around the jack posts.

Here are the front wall panels for the top shelf.

The photo below shows the top shelf ready for bolting to the wall, and the front wall ready to support the shelf.

All installed!  If you look closely you'll see the laser level line on the wall.  This project relied really heavily on the laser level, To keep the shelves and panels level across the basement, the laser level was pretty much on the whole time. Although the tripod on the level sucks, this Johnson laser level was well worth the $90.  Near the end after bashing my hands and head a few times, I ended up singing the merits of a laser level to "I will survive", by Gloria Gaynor (keep that tune in you mind well you sing this)

At first I scared
I was petrified
Making shelves square in a basement was a nightmare
but then I got a laser level
and everything worked out just fine
oh oh ya, i will survive.
And then I said, doesn't that look good,
man of man the shelves are great
da da da da da da da da daaaaaa

and on and on.

Top shelf all framed up:

Pine panels installed on the front of the shelves:

And now the pine is installed on the walls as well and the shelf is completed.  Here is the final shelf, with a before after to boot.  Quite an improvement we think.


Doesn't take long to fill up :)

Day 6 - Membrane and Lower Shelf Started

Day 6 and I've started the membrane and lower shelf.  You may have gathered this isn't actually day 6, more like Part 6.  Anyways, my son's birthday is coming up and we need to move boxes back downstairs.  Nothing like a deadline for motivation.

The plan is to cover the entire bedrock area with 2 large shelves.  We'll get a lot of storage and usable space.  Part of the lower shelf will also eventually be home for the washer and dryer.  Right now you have to walk up a hill to access the dryer, it'll be nice to get the dryer to a usable location.

If you haven't already, catch up with this project by reading about the first three days of work (clicking will open the link in a new window):
Day 1 -  Chipping out a the sump
Day 2 - Chipping out the perimeter trenches
Day 3 - Placing the Waterguard and dimpled membrane
Day 4 - Plumbing the sump and taping the membrane
Day 5 - Pouring the concrete floor

Day 7 - Final shelf and panelling

Disclaimer

The usual disclaimers apply -- I'm not a professional and this is total Do It Yourself (DIY) project.  Seek professional input prior to attempting this project.  It is NOT an easy project and requires a significant amount of work, knowledge and capability.  Make sure you fully understand all relevant design, structural, and geotechnical aspects, including the building code and applicable bylaws prior to starting.  Any doubts, hire someone qualified :)  We've had good success (so far), but that isn't a prediction of success at other sites.

I used a 6 mil polyethylene membrane, with the goal of reducing moisture coming from the bedrock encroachment in the basement.  The vapour barrier was tacked to the wall with acoustic sealant, then firmly attached with strapping.  I used the Ramset nailer again. 

The lower shelf will sit on a short wall.  I laid out pressure treatment 2x4's for the base plate to get the initial alignment as shown below.  I used PT since it's touching the bedrock floor and there may be some moisture seeping from the bedrock.

I used a laser level to shine a line across the bedrock to see what the lower shelf height would be.

 Here you can see a slightly better view.  The laser level was really handy to find the wall / shelf height.  Basically the shelf will be just a tiny bit higher than the highest point of the lower part of the bedrock.

With the wall height known, I rigged up small fence on my chop as seen below.  It lets me make fast repeatable cuts by just sliding the wood to the stop block and chopping.

A quick check was made before I went ahead and cut all the wall supports.

Once I had the wall supports, I  fastened them to the base plate PT 2x4's.

Flipped over the wall, and marveled at how fast this was going.  The base was secured to the bedrock floor using the ramset fasteners again.

I'm really starting to appreciate the speed of the concrete nail fasteners.  Here is a quick video of securing a support post under the frame, using the concrete nails / ramset and a palm nailer.



The lower shelf is 5' feet deep.  So, it'll hold a lot of stuff, the washing machine, driyr, and be the access for the upper shelf.  In order to stand us to the load, I built the shelf fairly strong, starting with a doubled up 2x4 beam at the top of the wall.   At this point it started to sink in I was using a lot of lumber for one little "shelf".  Thinking about it a bit more, then lower shelf is basically a large deck, 23' x 5' to be precise.

I used some temporary supports to keep the frame level and started adding the joists.  I got to use my palm nailer for the joist hangers so I was happy about that.  It's a fun tool I don't get to use too often.

Here is a photo of part of the lower level, with the membrane installed underneath as well.  To secure the membrane at the bottom, I tucked it in behind the waterguard drainage channel and held it in place with drainage stone.

Here is a photo showing supports under the span.  I put them there because this is where the washing machine will end up being, so I wanted to to be well supported.

If you haven't already, catch up with this project by reading about the first three days of work (clicking will open the link in a new window):
Day 1 -  Chipping out a the sump
Day 2 - Chipping out the perimeter trenches
Day 3 - Placing the Waterguard and dimpled membrane
Day 4 - Plumbing the sump and taping the membrane
Day 5 - Pouring the concrete floor

Day 7 - Final shelf and panelling