Author: Eddie Case
After you have your design, floor plan and any moisture or water problems corrected, it's time to start building the walls for your new space! This is an exciting time for most DIY'ers (Do It Your-selfers)!
The most important phase of wall construction has to be the lay-out task, this is where the permanent resting place of all of your new walls will be determined once and for all! I love laying out the walls! Once the layout is completed I can now see the actual floor plan drawn-out on the concrete floor in chalk Box dust, complete with door-swing locations and the sizes of all room areas are now clearly visible to me!
I am just taking my floor plan, that I designed on my computer software, complete with rough dimensions, and transferring those same wall lines from the paper floor plan right onto the concrete floor to form the actual new walls that I will be building.
Ok. I have a few rules that I adhere to when laying out the walls:
1.) When laying-out the walls that border the existing concrete or block walls, I stay away from the exterior wall 1" to the backside of my wall. This means the new wall when built will remain 1" away from the existing exterior wall and never touch it! (More on why I do this in another basement finishing video series)
2.) Before you snap any chalk lines on that concrete floor( Blue Chalk in that chalk box please! ) SWEEP THAT FLOOR CLEAN OF ALL DUST AND DIRT! Chalk will not stick to dirt and dust, and in a matter of minutes those new chalk lines will disappear from your dusty floor. So make sure you have a dust-free floor before you start the actually snapping of the chalk line!
3.) Make sure to check all inside corners for "square" by using your "Framing Square"! Nothing worse that a room that is "out-of-square"
4.) Mark all exterior walls 1st! Then begin to work your way into marking the interior walls.
5.) Mark and snap lines for your stairway wall (s) by continuing the wall lines from the existing stairway down to the bottom of the existing basement staircase. (more on building and finishing your new basement stairway in another basement finishing video series)
6.) Once all exterior and interior walls and stairway wall(s) have been property marked and "snapped with chalk line, it's time to layout any new door locations located in those new walls.
7.) Once all of the new finished basement wall have been laid-out properly on the floor, and all wall lines have been permanently chalked, it's time to TRANSFER THOSE CHALK LINES TO THE CEILING! We do this using the assistance of a Plumb bob & chalk line. transferring lines to the ceiling is much easier to do with 2 people helping one another! The person on the floor watches the plumb bob's position on the chalk line on the floor while the other person marks the plumb bob string on the ceiling, THIS IS VERY SIMPLE TO DO AND MAKE PERFECTLY PLUMB WALLS EVERY TIME! once all wall lines have been transferred up to the ceiling and new lies in the ceiling have been chalked it's almost time to start BUILDING THOSE NEW WALLS!
8.) Occasionally you will have to "add blocks" of 2"x4"'s to the ceiling in order to have something solid in the ceiling to fasten your walls to at the top plate, and also something solid to snap a chalk line against to show the proper positioning for the top of the wall. ( This more advanced basement framing and is covered in complete details in another basement finishing video series)
9.) Once all markings and chalking of the lines on both the floor and the ceiling are completed you are now officially ready to start cutting lumber and get the "framing show" on the road!
For more information about basement remodeling visit: http://www.1Basement.com
About the Author:
Since 1992 Ed Case has remodeled 350+ basements in the Harrisburg PA region. Ed is an expert in basement conversion projects and high-end basement interior design. Ed regularly holds training classes designed to teach local home owners in the Harrisburg PA region how to remodel their own basements successfully!
