Week Five thru Seven: electrical + drywall

Week four ended with heating and air. Making progress! Now it was time for the electrician to do his thing. Unfortunately, that meant cutting the power temporarily. Some days the weather was bad and the electrician was unable to get to us. Other days, he made some fantastic progress. Overall, we did not have lighting in the basement for three weeks. To help save on cost we agreed to let the electrician work here at his convenience when he was not needed on other jobs. Recessed lighting, dimmer switches, and plenty of electrical outlets were installed in every room. A new smoke/carbon monoxide detector was placed in the bedroom as well as the hallway to pass codes inspection.

Some construction flood lights were brought in while drywall was put up. Talk about a drastic change! Going from empty frames to real walls is a game changer for sure. The layout was looking great and everything was running smoothly. Even though we didn’t have lighting for three weeks it worked out for the best because my wife and I were waiting for it to warm up just a little so we could begin the next phase of installing the wood plank ceiling.

We did not want to use a dropped ceiling because we wanted a material that stood out and reflected the style we were hoping to achieve. Plus, this allowed us to save A LOT on the cost of using a dropped ceiling or hanging drywall…and it was going to look much cooler!

We ordered the flooring a couple weeks prior in hopes that it would arrive around the time we were ready to install it. However, like most things in life, that did not happen exactly. The shipping of the 2,000 lbs of flooring arrived much sooner than expected! Not only did it arrive early but it was delivered two days after Nashville had a terrible ice/snow storm. My driveway was completely iced over and the delivery men were not able to carry the boxes around the side of my house to the basement door….

25 flooring boxes were left on a large wooden pallet in my driveway. Each box weighed about 75 lbs and we couldn’t just leave them out in the cold weather. So my wife and I spent that evening carrying 2,000 lbs of flooring over a frozen driveway. There were a couple of slip and falls but we got it done without serious injuries! Those are the boxes nicely stacked up in the closet.