Continuing to move along, with painting complete, suspended ceiling finished, and lights installed. Still need to make a couple touchups on paint in some spots where the tape pulled it off, and a couple dings I made moving things around. It’s hard to tell from the pictures, the main area is painted dark grayish-brown (though it took Joce a good week or two to acknowledge it even had brown in it, to me that was the first color I saw..), the laundry and bathrooms are a light gray.

Here you can see the bathroom ceiling, with the completed bathroom vent visible. The light in here is a vanity light on the wall, I don’t think it was mounted yet when I took this picture.

I used low-profile “circ-line” fluorescent fixtures in the laundry room. These fixtures take two bulbs each (a 32W and a 22W) but I just used the one 32W in both which provides plenty of light. They’re very nice, only extending a couple inches down.

For the main area, I have 3 independent sets of lights: 4 wall sconces (dimmable); 8 halogen pot lights (dimmable); and 1 halogen pot light mounted for a dart board, controlled by a switch on the wall next to it. Since one of the major uses of this room is a home theater, that was my main concern with lighting. I initially spent a lot of time researching dimmable CFL and LED technology, only to come to the conclusion that right now, even if I were to spend a ton of money (eg, even more than I would paying for electricity for these bulbs for a few years), it simply wouldn’t be as good as halogen/incandescent for dimming and warmth/color.

Mounting the pot lights was a bit of a challenge – I spent a couple hours trying to figure out the best number of pots and layout, which would provide adequate light when needed, but also physically fit the lights (eg, not have vents/joists in the way). Ultimately, I had to cut out notches in a couple joists to make it work. I used some reflective tape to try and reduce some heat, not sure how well it will work yet. I may ultimately end up cutting another inch or two out.

Now that the drywall is finished, I installed the window sills. I’m just using 1×8 pine board, trimmed to size on a table saw. I’ll later add trim around the outside. I ended up deciding that it was worth finally buying a brad nailer (and hey, I needed a compressor anyways) – definitely ranks up there among my most fun-to-use tools. It made quick work of putting the sills in place.

I also installed the beams for the suspended ceiling, which was more expensive than I thought it would be. I think I’ve spent around $500 on materials, and still need to get another box or two of tiles.

I’m definitely getting closer to completion, though there’s still quite a few tasks left (paint, trim, more paint, flooring, lighting, outlets and switches, doors, cabinets, plumbing hook-up..). I was really hoping to be done August 1st (our 1-year anniversary of moving in), but there’s no way that will happen now – though it will definitely be more on the side of “not quite finished, but livable space” than “construction zone”.

Okay, so I’ve been a bit lazy with the blog lately. Things have only been happening in the last few weeks though, but I’ll make posts to work through it all. I finished putting the rest of the drywall up (which I started in April, wow..). Nothing special, a bunch of cutting and screwing involved..

After this, I started taping, with the help of my Dad. Now, this is where the big delay comes in, and why not a lot was accomplished since April. Attempting to tape was a bad idea. While I don’t mind doing small amounts of mudding/taping, I learned that 1) I really do not like doing large amouts of it, and 2) I’m realy bad at it. We did actually get it all taped (although my dad got sick part way through so I ended up finishing it on my own a few days after we started), but then came time to sand. I hate sanding, much much more than taping. This meant, after about a bit over 2 hours of sanding (a couple sessions, sread over a week), and realizing at my pace and with the amount of mud on the wall (Did I mention I’m bad at taping?) I figured it would take me at least 5 more hours – and this was just the first coat.

So I did what I should have done at the start, and I called in a pro. He cleaned up my mess and had a new coat on in about 4 hours, and then came back and did a couple more coats. Each time, it took him about 3-4 hours to sand and put a new coat on. I will not show you pictures of my job, but here’s the final product: