If your home`s basement has never been finished, then it`s time to get it done! Completing the basement can easily boost your home`s value, and make it a wonderful place to spend some time. The best place to start is from the bottom-and then up-so begin with your floor. Before you do anything else, determine if it`s level. Quite a few basement floors will slope to control drainage, and it is important to keep that pattern no matter what else you do. Determine the level of the new floor by finding the highest point of the old floor. You might want to move plumbing or electrical lines to the top or bottom of the walls before you actually install paneling. Before you install new paneling, make sure there are enough electrical outlets for your finished basement. And basement rooms typically need a lot of artificial lighting.
To begin the walls, attach furring strips to your masonry. These important pieces to the puzzle are either 1×3 or 1×2 strips of timber that will hold up the paneling. Begin the process by installing the furring strips along the top and bottom of the room. Then place them in the corners. The second step is to place the strips vertically about every sixteen inches. This way you can make sure the walls will be even. Fasten them in place with masonry screws, construction tape, or caulk. The next step is the insulation. Cut foam board insulation to fit between the furring strips. If the insulation has facings, attach them to the strips with a staple gun. If they don`t, they can be easily attached with a strong adhesive. Cover the insulation with plastic sheeting to protect your room from moisture. Last you`ll affix your wall panels to the furring strips. Choose to start in one of the corners, and make certain that you allow a quarter inch of clearance from the floor. Normal paneling has a four foot width, so if your strips were placed correctly, each panel should be centered on one of them. Once everything is lined up, add some adhesive to the furring strips and start attaching the panels. Remember to do only a few at a time– the glue won`t stay sticky for more than ten minutes. Make sure that the top of your panel is attached firmly to the furring strip. Do this by driving a nail or two into the panel and strip. Remember not to affix the bottom with a nail just yet. Give the glue time and room to work by placing a wedge to widen the gap between the strip and paneling. Then you can remove the wedges and tap the panels into place. Drive nails into the bottoms of the panels.
What about access holes in your paneling? You need to cut out the window shapes before you hang the panels. The easiest way to do this is to cut one half of the window out of one panel, and the other half out of the next one in the series. Make sure that your basement has at least two different ways that a person can exit in case of emergency. One of the new windows can be an exit, provided that it is large enough and not too high from the floor. It shouldn`t be more than fifty four inches. The zoning or building department of your town will have the necessary information for using a window as an exit. If the windows in the masonry walls need to be enlarged, call in a professional company to do the job. Remember to mark on the paneling where the electrical outlets will be in the room. Then it`s just an easy matter of cutting the access holes once everything is in place. You can then use these markings to cut the access hole for the outlet. Start by drilling a small hole at the top right corner, and then use a fine toothed saw to cut around the edges. The next step is to install a finished ceiling. This is easily accomplished with some soffit around the perimeter and easy to install trays for the acoustical tiles. Don`t worry about the room getting shorter. Just hang your pictures a few inches lower, and no one will notice the difference.
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